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

Appendix C
Figure C8 Demographic characteristics of young people interviewed
All young people interviewed for the headspace evaluation completed a short demographic
survey. The results of this survey are summarised here.
We interviewed roughly equal proportions of young people aged between 12-17 years (n=23)
and 18-25 years (n=27). Slightly over half of those interviewed were female (n=28) and the
majority were non-Indigenous (n=45). The majority of those interviewed were born in Australia
(n=46), with one young person each born in the UK, England, the USA and New Zealand – a
result that highlights little cultural diversity, even among those born overseas.
The majority of young people spoke English at home, with just four indicating that they spoke
another language – two spoke Greek, one spoke Spanish and one spoke an Aboriginal
language. The majority of young people interviewed aged between 12 and 17 years were in
full-time education (17 out of 23). Among the 18-25 year old cohort, 10 were looking for work;
7 were engaged in full-time study; 2 in part-time study; and 2 in part-time employment. Two
of the young people in the 12-17 year cohort had part-time family care-giving responsibilities.
Another 2 in the older cohort had part-time family care-giving responsibilities and 4 had fulltime
family care-giving responsibilities.
The majority of the younger cohort lived with their parents (n=20), as did over half of the older
cohort (n=16). Please note however that these categories are not mutually exclusive and young
people were asked to tick all that apply.
Young people were asked to report on their highest level of school completed but these results
for the younger cohort (12-17 year olds) are not reported here as most were still in school. The
highest level of school completed by 8 of the young people in the 18-25 year cohort was Year
10 or equivalent; a further 3 completed Year 11; and 5 completed Year 12 or equivalent. Three
had completed a university qualification and 8 had completed a TAFE, trade certificate or
apprenticeship.
The main source of income for young people in the 12-17 years cohort was their parents
(n=18). Paid work was the main source of income for 2 young people, while government
benefits were the main source of income for just one individual in the 12-17 years cohort. The
main source of income for young people in the 18-25 years cohort was government benefits
(n=17), followed by paid work (n=5).
The majority of young people interviewed had been attending headspace for over a year
(n=23). One young person had been attending for less than a month; 10 had been attending
for 1-3 months; 7 for 4-6 months; and 8 for 7-12 months. The length of involvement with
headspace indicates that interviews were predominantly conducted with young people who
have had high levels of engagement with the service reflecting the recruitment method used.
The recruitment process is likely to have some bearing on the positive feedback that the
majority of interviewees provided about headspace.
Analysis of qualitative interviews
All but four interviews were voice recorded and transcribed verbatim. These four interviews were
conducted at a coffee shop near the headspace centre and the surrounding noise made recording
impractical. These four interviews were not conducted at the headspace centre because they had
no space available at the scheduled time. Detailed notes were taken during the interviews and these
notes were used in the analysis.
Identifying information was removed prior to analysis. Interviews were analysed with the assistance
of QSR NVivo10, a qualitative data analysis software package. To begin, a ‘headspace 2013’ project
was created in NVivo and all interview transcripts were imported into the project folder. Two coding
frameworks were then drafted: one for headspace clients, and another for headspace staff. Following
hard-copy coding of a small number of transcripts, the frameworks were revised and finalised. The
frameworks were then created within NVivo using a unified but hierarchical ‘tree node’ structure.
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