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

3. Access and Engagement with Centres
Figure 3.10 Distribution of headspace clients by travel distance to headspace centre
Source: Authors calculations from hCSA data.
This finding indicates that additional support or alternative models of service delivery may be
required to engage young people who reside more than 10 kilometres from a headspace centre.
During interviews with young people and headspace staff, a lack of transport options or money to
afford travel costs to a centre were identified as problematic for young people living in regional and
remote areas. Some young people commented that they had received assistance in getting to a
headspace centre:
It’s really easy because, like, my mum works so sometimes I can’t, but if you call them and
then they call a taxi and then the taxis have a thing that’s, like, it’s all free and everything.
So it makes it really, really easy to get here because there have been times that I can’t.
(Female, 17 years)
As indicated in the quote below though, the provision of assistance with cost of taxis and train fares
is not only helpful for some young people that live a distance from the centre, but also for young
people who simply have no money:
We have some young people that ring up and say “My Centrelink payment hasn’t come in, I
can’t get there”. They don’t have even the money to get onto the [transport] card to get onto
public transport to get here, so money is definitely an issue. (Receptionist/Admin).
Practical barriers such as centre opening hours and lack of transport
During interviews, a few young people commented on the challenges of attending centres that do not
provide extended opening hours.
Because it’s only open 8.00 to 5.00 Monday to Friday; it’s not open on the weekends. Well, I
know some kids would be at school and they wouldn’t be willing to skip school or anything to
come and get help because then they get in trouble (Female, 24 years).
There’s kind of a general assumption made that people don’t have nine to five jobs, which
is, to be perfectly honest, generally true - quite a lot of people don’t. But also people have
school, and especially when they’re doing their [Year 12 or equivalent qualification] … that’s a
difficulty, because they need to be at school, or I need to be at work. (Male, 18 years)
A number of parents were critical of centres that did not offer extended opening hours as this meant
that they had to take time off work to transport their young person to headspace. As indicated by
Table 3.4 below, a substantial proportion of clients had to wait for more than two weeks before
receiving a service from headspace.
Social Policy Research Centre 2015
headspace Evaluation Final Report
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