How to find funding for occupational violence prevention training

In most services, the best source is a budget that already exists inside the organisation. External funds work best when the training is set up as a nurse-led practice-improvement project or an evaluated pilot, rather than as a training purchase.

The argument that unlocks most of them comes from Part 2: violence drives workers' compensation claims and premiums, so training that reduces incidents helps pay for itself.

Route 1: Which internal budgets can pay for it?

Start inside your own organisation: it's the fastest money, and every state has put new money into OV since 2025, mostly for security, with training named alongside it. The trick is knowing who holds each budget and framing the training in their terms.

State examples:

• WA: WA Health's violence policy (MP 0159/21) makes training mandatory in high-risk areas, so it has to be funded from provider budgets anyway. See the WA guide.
• Victoria: public health services receive recurrent Training and Development Funding, including the Continuing Nursing and Midwifery Education program. Its 2026-27 guidelines exclude mandatory and compliance training and name occupational violence and aggression training, so don't plan on it for the training itself. It can fund education needs analysis and clinical risk review; ask your CNME lead what qualifies.
• SA: each local health network's security agreement covers staff training on behaviours of concern (SA Hansard).
• Queensland: the government put $8.7m into hospital security in 2025-26, including more Security Ambassadors, a model it describes as a de-escalation strategy (Qld Government). Security and clinical training together fits that direction.

Routes 2 to 5: What external funding is there?

External funds are smaller and slower, but they suit a pilot, a single ward, or individual nurses.

Route 2: nurse-led innovation funds

Route 3: workplace safety grants

• WA: WorkSafe WA's Mentally Healthy Workplaces Grant Program funds training and tools that address psychosocial hazards, up to $200,000 a year for two years, with Stage 2 dates due in early 2027. State government applicants are excluded unless the project is an inter-agency arrangement, so it suits private hospitals, not-for-profits and community mental health providers rather than WA Health services.
• Victoria: WorkSafe's Psychological Health Industry Trials funded a $6.9m mental health ward trial (WorkSafe Victoria). It's closed, but it shows the regulator will fund this kind of work.

Route 4: individual allowances and scholarships

• Professional development allowances: Queensland public-sector nurses at Grade 3 and above receive an annual allowance, paid in two instalments (about $1,740 to $2,900 a year depending on the facility, per the Nurses and Midwives (Queensland Health) Award), and NT Health nurses up to $2,334 a year (NT Health). Either can pay for a place on a course.
• Scholarships: the Lions Nurses' Scholarship (NSW and ACT nurses, up to $5,000 for short courses, applications usually open 1 August to 31 October each year), ACN Foundation scholarships (around March to April) and the Churchill Fellowship for overseas study, such as visiting UK Safewards sites (average about $40,000).
• Awards: HESTA Nursing & Midwifery Awards give $10,000 per winner for professional development or service improvement. Teams can be nominated, and 2027 nominations close 13 December 2026.

Route 5: research and philanthropy

• Research grants suit a service willing to run the training as an evaluated pilot with a university. Examples: NSW's Translational Research Grants Scheme, WA's FHRI Fund Mental Health Translational Research Grants (up to $600,000 over three years), the MRFF Clinician Researchers stream for nurse-led workforce innovation, and the HCF Research Foundation.
• Philanthropy: Perpetual IMPACT funds pilots and capacity building (usually $10,000–$100,000, up to $120,000 per application). Its 2027 round is open 4 November to 4 December 2026, and a hospital foundation is the safest applicant. Around one in six applications is funded.
• Aged care: ARIIA has funded a Safewards project in aged care before.

How should you frame the request?

Present it as a project with measured outcomes, not as a course to buy. Most funders, internal and external, want the same four things:

1. A named problem with numbers: your incident, claims and restrictive-practice data (Part 2, Step 1).
2. A practice change, led by nurses: for example, "implement and evaluate Safewards on two acute wards".
3. Outcomes and how you'll measure them: baseline, 90-day and 12-month measures (Part 2, Step 5). Philanthropic funders such as Perpetual ask for an outcomes table with indicators and measurement tools.
4. Endorsement: your Director of Nursing, and for research grants an academic partner.

When do the funds open?

Most external funds run on an annual cycle, so the timing of your request matters as much as the framing. Dates below are as at October 2026; check each fund's page before you plan around it.

Examples of training funded this way

• A regulator-required program: after three nurses were stabbed at RPA in 2019, Sydney LHD funded a 24/7 behavioural support team and 25 scholarships through a SafeWork NSW enforceable undertaking worth more than $3m (SafeWork NSW).
• A WorkSafe trial: Victoria's Psychological Health Industry Trials funded a mental health ward program across Alfred and St Vincent's (WorkSafe Victoria).
• An aged care innovation grant: ARIIA funded Uniting Communities and Flinders University's Safewards program in aged care (ARIIA).

Find the funding routes for your state in the state guides. Next: Part 4, how to present your case and get to yes.