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

3. Access and Engagement with Centres
This is largely due to program expansion and the opening of new centres 13 . Of the 67 centres, all
were established in rounds 1-5 and were operating by the end of the 2013/14 financial year; however,
14 of these were opened during the year and so not all were operating at maximum capacity.
As shown in Figure 3.1, headspace centres generally saw between 9,000 and 12,000 clients each
month. The number of clients decreased in December and January, which may indicate lower service
availability and less service demand because many people, including young people, are on holidays.
Figure 3.1 Number of clients by centre round, 2013/14
Note: Population are those young people that received a headspace service within the 2013/14 financial year.
Source: Authors calculations from hCSA data.
3.2 What is the profile of young people accessing headspace services? Which groups
are over/ under-represented?
This section profiles the young people attending headspace centres and compares them to 12-25-
year olds across the population and to 16-24 year olds with identified mental health disorders.
This comparative analysis draws on hCSA data, the 2011 Census of Population and Housing and
evaluation survey data.
The socio-demographic characteristics of headspace clients compared to young people in the
population are reported in Table 3.1 and described below. The same analysis by different age
categories (12-17 years and 18-25 years) is reported in Appendix E.
13
Total client counts reported in the first evaluation (Muir et al, 2009) and the preliminary output for this second
evaluation under-estimated client numbers as figures were calculated from the old MHAGIC administrative dataset,
which had large amounts of missing data.
Social Policy Research Centre 2015
headspace Evaluation Final Report
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