Thread by @_angemccormack

On RUOK Day, it's worth asking whether our mental health services are OK.

And Headspace, the thing the federal government points to *without fail* when it comes to mental health for young people, arguably isn't going "OK".

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Headspace is Australia's only federally-funded, free mental health service for young people, and we're lucky to have it. It's saved and changed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of young Australian lives.

But if you show up to Headspace today asking for a psychologist appointment, you'll be met with, in some cases, waiting times of up to 6 months long. Two centres have stopped taking new clients AT ALL.

Just to be clear: the only federally-funded, free mental health service in Australia is at a point where it is *turning away clients*.

That is not OK.

If young people can't get psych appointments from the free place that the government points to, where can they? What on earth do they do? Where do they go?

Taken at an average, Headspace says its wait times are 6 - 8 weeks, and to Headspace's credit they do offer a number of services for young people while they wait.

.@ian_hickie, who was a co-founder of Headspace, says waiting months for a Headspace appointment has disastrous consequences on a young person. It implies that their problems aren't big enough, and it discourages them from coming back to help.

@ian_hickie More importantly, we don't have a benchmark for how long waiting times "should" be, or how many weeks we're comfortable, as a nation, to leave young people in distress. There's no standard. There's no KPI for what we should be aiming for here.

@ian_hickie 6 month wait times seem unacceptably long now, but what if that becomes the new, accepted normal?

@ian_hickie At what point do we say that the well-loved and used federally funded mental health service is at a crisis point? And at what point do we say that "boosting funding" to Headspace (while well-intentioned and welcomed) isn't actually a panacea for youth in distress?

@ian_hickie I don't have the answers when it comes to solving this problem. But Australia's known for it's world class health care. So I hope we can reduce mental distress in young people and be leaders on that, too.

We just need a bold strategy that goes beyond "record funding".

@ian_hickie Read my story here:
abc.net.au/triplej/progra…

And as a brief illustration of how the govt points to headspace when it's asked about youth mental health or suicide, here's what the PM said when I asked him about this in July.

Another thing: these issues around headspace waiting times and capacity and workforce absolutely aren't just a symptom of Covid stress! This story from 2019 should have been a stark warning: abc.net.au/news/2019-04-2…