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

7. Conclusion
for youth mental health is complex and fragmented. While individual headspace centres can and do
mitigate some of these issues locally, there are significant structural barriers to providing a holistic
and continuous service to vulnerable young people.
The evaluation identified a number of ways that the service delivery model could be enhanced to
better meet the needs of young people and their parents. Many parents and carers would like to be
more engaged with their young person’s treatment and wanted more help to learn how to effectively
support their young person. Further, evaluation data indicates that there is a need for headspace to
provide family-based therapy. Many staff at centres acknowledged this need and would like to be
better able to support families as a unit.
Another way that the service delivery model could be enhanced to better meet the needs of young
people is to increase the capacity of centres to provide outreach services to engage young people
who are reluctant to engage in centre based care. While eheadspace and engagement with schools
have attempted to address these issues, there are still large groups of young people not accessing
headspace.
The evaluation highlights some workforce challenges, particularly the need for more GPs and
psychiatrists in headspace centres or attached to them. Although further evidence is required,
headspace should consider and address the reasons why many GPs are not willing to refer young
people to headspace. A strategy to actively engage GPs may be required to boost awareness and
develop trust. The data collected from GPs suggests that alternative forms of collaboration between
centres and GPs should be considered.
Online and telephone treatment methods may be of assistance to help not only increase scale, but to
support young people with low needs as well as young people unable to leave their homes or travel
to headspace centres.
The economic evaluation
The economic analysis indicates that the average cost of a headspace occasion of service is $339
(2013/14 dollars) 37 . Considerable variation in average costs per occasion of service at the centre
level exists and can range from $136 to above $1,000, taking into account the headspace grant only.
Substantial surpluses also exist in terms of the headspace grant within the 2013/14 financial year. It is
recognised that legitimate impediments may reduce the ability of some centres to realise operational
efficiencies, particularly in certain areas throughout Australia. However, it is recommended that
centre level operational efficiencies are examined in order to make better use of finite resources. This
could involve a number of measures, including:
• review of funding grant allocation relative to historical and predicted need at the local area
level
• targeted assistance to particular centres to ensure operational efficiencies are optimised
• performance indicators and targets linked to grant funding.
Each of these initiatives would need to be carefully considered and implemented to ensure that
unintended consequences for the headspace program did not materialise and that headspace
can continue to reach its objectives in improving the social, emotional and mental health of young
Australians. In terms of the government investment, the mental health of headspace clients improves
moderately relative to other matched control groups. It should also be noted that headspace provides
a number of benefits such as community engagement and awareness which are difficult to cost but
which have raised the profile of youth mental health in Australia.
37
There is no similar program with which to directly compare and benchmark headspace program costs, however, this
occasion of service cost compares closely to ambulatory services which nationally averaged $303 per treatment day
in the 2012-13 financial year (excluding Victoria). Ambulatory care services (a form of community based mental health
services) are provided by outpatient clinics (hospital or clinic based), mobile assessment and treatment teams, day
programs and other services dedicated to assessment, treatment, rehabilitation and mental health care (SCRGSP,
2015).
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