headspace centres are providing a point of service access for young Australians with high levels of psychological distress and need for care in the early stages of the development of mental disorder.
headspace, Australia's national youth mental health initiative, was created in 2006 in response to the recognition that the existing health system needed to be much more accessible and effective for young people with mental and substance use disorders.
With funding of more than $54 million from the Australian Government, a carefully constructed and selected system of 30 “communities of youth services”, or integrated service hubs and networks, across the nation is being established, supported by programs for community awareness, workforce training and evidence‐based resource material.
headspace aims to improve access, and service cohesion and quality, and ultimately health and social outcomes, for young people aged 12–25 years experiencing mental illness and related substance use problems.
Within the Council of Australian Governments framework, this will require synergistic planning with, and co‐investment on behalf of, state and territory governments, as well as the support and involvement of local communities and the wider Australian society.
Data regarding outcomes for young people using mental health care services similar to headspace centres are scarce, but the current results compare favourably with those reported overseas, and show positive outcomes for young people using headspace centres.
This study investigated the proposition that adolescence involves significant shifts in social identity as a function of changes in social context and cognitive style. Using an experimental design, we primed either peer or gender identity with a sample of 380 early‐ (12–13 years), mid‐ (15–16 years), and late‐adolescents (18–20 years) and then measured the effect of the prime on self‐stereotyping and ingroup favouritism. The findings showed significant differences in social identity across adolescent groups, in that social identity effects were relatively strong in early‐ and late‐adolescents, particularly when peer group identity rather than gender identity was salient. While these effects were consistent with the experience of change in educational social context, differences in cognitive style were only weakly related to ingroup favouritism. The implications of the findings for theory and future research on social identity during adolescence are discussed.
Objectives: To describe the services provided to young people aged 12-25 years who attend headspace centres across Australia, and how these services are being delivered.Design: A census of headspace clients commencing an episode of care between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014.Participants: All young people first attending one of the 55 fully established headspace centres during the data collection period (33 038 young people).Main outcome measures: Main reason for presentation, wait time, service type, service provider type, funding stream.Results: Most young people presented for mental health problems and situational problems (such as bullying or relationship problems); most of those who presented for other problems also received mental health care services as needed. Wait time for the first appointment was 2 weeks or less for 80.1% of clients; only 5.3% waited for more than 4 weeks. The main services provided were a mixture of intake and assessment and mental health care, provided mainly by psychologists, intake workers and allied mental health workers. These were generally funded by the headspace grant and the Medicare Benefits Schedule.Conclusions: headspace centres are providing direct and indirect access to mental health care for young people.
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