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

Appendix B
for greater flexibility in service specificity which is matched to community or cultural needs. However,
the extent to which this model reduces costs is highly dependent on the geographic distribution of
hubs and spokes, and the operating costs of both hub and spoke sites. Further, the reach of smaller
centres, and their ability to deliver services to the population or effectively refer young people, would
require further investigation. Additional variations to the model, such as the use of fly-in fly-out
functional teams to spoke centres, could further improve this alternative model of centre allocation.
Additional information regarding the cost of smaller centres, effective geographic distribution of hub
and spoke models, and service capacity of centres is required to further investigate this model of
expansion.
Conclusion for the three alternative models of centre allocation:
Each of the alternative models described above would, independently, represent an improvement in
at least one aspect of client access to a headspace service using physical centres as the delivery
mode. The first model described (the data driven approach to access, demand and capacity)
prioritises youth access in an expansion of the headspace model. However, this is likely to come at
the cost of efficiency due to the implementation of a large number of additional centres. The potential
for smaller centres to service low population sizes could mitigate this weakness. Model two (the use
of UCLs as the geography of interest) is more likely to allocate centres to service catchment areas
compared to the current model of allocation. However, this advantage may be in part addressed due
to the ‘human intelligence’ component of the current model, which suggests that selected sites are
likely to represent service hubs. As in the first model, the UCL model would require a large number of
sites if rolled out to its natural conclusion, and limits would need to be placed on in-scope region size.
The final alternative model, which proposes a hub and spoke method of service delivery, is the most
likely of the three to result in cost savings. However, the implications for youth access and effective
service delivery and implementation within the context of headspace require further consideration.
There is a need to balance the competing aims of maximising youth access to services against
improving the efficiency of service delivery. The models outlined above address different weaknesses
in the current model. However, due to data insufficiency it is challenging to provide indicative costs
for these models which make use of different geographies and centre sizes. It is likely that the most
efficient and effective centre based delivery model would use a combination of the three approaches
described here to deliver a centre based service in a way that offered equitable access for a high
proportion of Australian young people. Further investigation of these models, with additional data
resources, would allow for more robust estimates of the additional number of centres and the cost of
expansion under these alternative models.
Included in Table B10, is a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the current model of centre
expansion and the alternative models proposed above.
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