Is headspace making a difference to young people’s lives?

5. Service Delivery Model
Figure 5.11 Extent to which young person was supported by headspace during transition
Source: Survey of Professional Stakeholders.
Interview data provides little additional insight and of the seven staff (7/25) who were asked directly
about their experience in transitioning clients, most of these had not engaged in this process:
The other thing that I haven’t had much experience with yet, and that’s interesting because
I’ve been here for five years… I haven’t had to do a lot of transitioning people into the adult
system… So I guess my concern [is] I’m just not quite sure how that will go for some people
when they have to move from a youth service like this into the adult system (Psychiatrist)
[clients needing to transition to adult services] are such a small percentage of who we
service. I rarely get someone who’s 24 or 25 (Youth Worker)
I don’t think I’ve had experience of that because I don’t think I’ve had anyone that’s needed
to transition, but I think one of the other workers has (Social Worker)
Despite the limited information provided by interviewed staff, the survey results suggest that
headspace staff are successfully implementing a number of strategies to help transition clients to
adult services and that service providers who collaborate with headspace are generally satisfied with
the processes being implemented and the level of support provided to the client. Improvement in
this area is possible as a few respondents have clearly had unsatisfactory experiences; however, the
overwhelming majority reported that liaison had taken place and that the client had been supported
during the transition process.
5.12 Summary
Evaluation data provides some insight into how services for some young people could be enhanced.
Firstly, the evaluation identified a need for family counselling to be included as part of the treatment
options provided at centres. It is clear that the problems that many young people are dealing with are
family problems, and so the family should be the unit of analysis.
Further, the service model could be enhanced to better meet the needs of parents by increasing the
capacity of centres to offer more appointments and therefore services outside of school and work
times.
This chapter also examines clients and other stakeholders’ views about and satisfaction with the
service delivery model. headspace clients were overwhelmingly positive about headspace, and
generally satisfied with the services they had received. It needs to be remembered when interpreting
the results, though, that we did not interview any young people who had dropped out of treatment
after a single visit. Moreover, the profile of headspace clients presented in Chapter 3 suggests that
the service delivery model is not meeting the needs of CALD young people who are starkly underrepresented
as clients.
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headspace Evaluation Final Report
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