Headspace: Convenient for adults, but not beneficial for young people...
Richard Hendrie
??Chair of Consumer, Carer and Community Council NSW Ministry of Health, Non-Executive Director, NSW MH Commission 2024 Community Champion RU, 2025 Albury Citizen of the Year, Living with PTSD and DID. Opinions my own ??
For those who know me, you understand that my perspective comes from both deep lived experience and professional expertise. What I’m writing may not be convenient for adults, but it’s not for their benefit—it's a critical examination of the services we provide to children and young people under the guise of benevolence.
It’s easy to dismiss me as "anti–youth mental health" simply because I’m pointing out that Headspace doesn’t work—but that would be a simplistic conclusion :)
I simply don’t support what I often call ‘bumper sticker’ healthcare. Slapping a mental health or disability label on something doesn’t make it inherently good. This kind of shallow thinking fails the very people who need real support. It’s time we move beyond surface-level solutions and engage in deeper, more meaningful conversations about what truly effective care looks like.
Established in 2006 (I was an early client), headspace serves as Australia's National Youth Mental Health Foundation, providing early intervention mental health services to young people aged 12 to 25. As of the 2022–2023 financial year, headspace expanded its reach by establishing eight new services—including two satellites and three centres—and upgrading three satellites to full-service centres.
Date shows that headspace has provided over 4.4 million services to more than 700,000 young Australians, I’m careful with my words here, services are not be mistaken with helped 700,000. In the 2020–2021 period alone, there were 441,914 “care episodes”, averaging 6.3 services per young person. However, at my local headspace, in Albury/Wodonga, this average is significantly lower at 5.2 sessions per person. This suggests that young people often disengage before completing treatment, likely because the service is not meeting their needs.
A study published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry has raised concerns about the clinical outcomes associated with headspace. Despite substantial funding and widespread access, there is limited evidence demonstrating significant improvements in mental health outcomes for young people using the service.
Headspace is funded through multiple government channels, including the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), and direct government grants. However, specific financial details regarding Medicare costs attributed directly to headspace services are not readily available. This lack of transparency raises concerns about accountability, future funding allocations, and public trust.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), mental health services in Australia received nearly $12.2 billion in funding in 2021–2022, comprising approximately 7% of total government healthcare expenditure. This funding supports a range of services, including community-based programs, hospital inpatient and outpatient care, and specialist consultations.
The Better Access Scheme, introduced in 2006, initially provided 12 therapy sessions per calendar year (delivered in two sets of six sessions), with up to 18 sessions available in exceptional circumstances. However, in November 2011, the number was reduced to 10 individual and 10 group sessions per year.
Despite this, data from AIHW indicates that young people accessing mental health services through headspace receive, on average, only 5 to 6 sessions per year—well below the allocated 10. At my local Albury/Wodonga headspace, the average is 5.2 sessions per person. This early disengagement from services swill contribute to lower recovery rates, as research suggests that sustained therapy is often required for meaningful mental health improvements.
Headspace’s reported recovery rates remain a topic of debate due to inconsistent data reporting and mixed clinical outcomes. Studies indicate that while some young people experience moderate symptom improvement, dropout rates remain high, and a significant portion disengages before completing treatment. Recovery rates also closely align with natural rates of recovery, in other words, attending headspace did nothing for the young persons recovery.
While headspace plays a prominent role in providing youth mental health support in Australia, there are real concerns about clinical effectiveness, and continuity of care. The low session completion rate and limited sustained improvement suggest a need for personalised treatment plans, better service engagement strategies, and a stronger evaluation framework to ensure that headspace effectively meets the needs of young Australians.
old hand, head and heart at thinking, being and doing…better. Adaptor, Agitator, Inverter and interpreter of the social and cultural need for change.
5 天前I worked as a consultant to help develop the original Riverina (now Wagga headspace) back in 2006/07 as part of wave 2 headspace. This was prior to the clinical service pathway through Medicare being implemented (2008) and the focus of headspace was to provide a coordinated intersector engagement pathway for any young person (12-25) experiencing psycho-social vulnerabilities including mental health and alcohol/substance abuse; or those caring supporting them. In other words breaking down the silos or at least improving the safety net between them. Significantly young people, service providers and community stakeholders asked for a focus on accessing crisis emotional support, social engagement to overcome loneliness and control of confidence (knowing and agreeing to what information was shared, with whom and when). In response headspace directed us toward developing clinical pathways even though this was not identified as the most urgent need and could not be sustained within the funding model. Rather strangely they also insisted our efforts to provide rural outreach be discarded as headspace had to becentre based - people needed to inreach services by taxi if necessary (in an footprint over 200km wide). Network or empire?
Onward and upwards!
6 天前Like the more recently devised Head to Health, Headspace is just one more silo, duplicating overheads, and interrupting continuity of care; whilst draining public mental health services of desperately needed funds. We need a (prior to) Cradle to Grave , wholistic, integrated, Public Mental Health System, person focussed and led by Psychiatrists (World evidence shows health services led by Doctors are the most effective). Such services would engage closely, intimately, with those with lived experience, with Psychologists, with OTs, with Social Workers, with Nurses, with the whole span of a multidisciplinary team. But that isn't glamorous, does multiple bureaucrats out of jobs, so is unlikely ever to happen...meanwhile, people suffer.