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

5. Service Delivery Model
Further, in some interviews, it was clear that young people and parents were struggling with similar
mental health problems:
The first time somebody actually noticed would have been in year seven when I refused to go
to school because people were picking on me, and I vomited out of anxiety, and I couldn’t
breathe at all. Then mum drove me to the doctors and she’s like – she just threw up and
couldn’t breathe, and she just explained everything that I was feeling, and the doctor was like
you should really go somewhere, you should go somewhere to find help. Then mum looked
online and found headspace (Male, 15 years)
The gap in services for parents was identified by a number of headspace staff who wanted to offer
family counselling:
It would be useful if there was more of a focus on parents… If there was more of a focus on
being able to do family work (Clinical Psychologist)
Often you can do more work with the family than you might with the young person, but it
can have an effect for the young person. And I also think that [the headspace model] just
doesn’t encourage a lot of inclusive family practice, working with families, which I think makes
a huge difference (Clinical Leader)
If I’m working with a family and I can see that there’s no point just working with a young
person in isolation, we need to work with the family as well, then I will try to access adult
counselling for the parents. So I’ll refer them because we can’t do that here (Youth Worker)
The evaluation therefore identified a need among some families for family counselling and a desire
by some staff to offer this service.
5.6 How and to what extent are additional components of headspace (such as
eheadspace, headspace National Office and Centre of Excellence) perceived as
supporting headspace to meet its objectives?
While the evaluation is focused on examining the effectiveness of the centre-based program in
improving outcomes for young people, it is acknowledged that centres are supported by additional
components that help headspace to meet its strategic objectives. The additional components include
eheadspace, headspace National Office and the Centre of Excellence. The contribution of each of
these additional components to headspace achieving its objectives is examined below.
eheadspace
eheadspace is a clinical health service that provides online and telephone support and counselling to
young people aged 12-25 years and their families. The service began in 2011 through funding from
the Australian Government. The aim of eheadspace is to increase the reach of headspace services
around Australia by operating like a virtual headspace centre. The online chat and direct phone
service is free, confidential and available seven days a week from 9am to 1pm (AEDST). Services
are provided by qualified youth mental health professionals, including specialist family counsellors
who are available on particular days.
As shown in Figure 5.2, about 30% of clients that had accessed headspace services in the 2013/14
financial year reported that they had also used eheadspace in the past week, month and/or year. This
is a significant proportion of the client group and shows that eheadspace is an important component
of the service model. Patterns of eheadspace usage are relatively consistent across states and
territories; however, clients in South Australia, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory
have lower rates of eheadspace use.
Social Policy Research Centre 2015
headspace Evaluation Final Report
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