Australia’s leading youth mental health organisations have joined forces on a six-point plan as new polling shows Australians want action..
Orygen has joined the nation’s leading mental health organisations including headspace, batyr, ReachOut Australia, Prevention United, ARACY, Black Dog Institute, Mission Australia, Youth Focus and yourtown to call for:
All organisations also support Mental Health Australia’s federal election call for all political parties to commit to implement pathways to free mental health care for everyone under the age of 25.
New polling has exposed a stark gap between what Australians expect governments to spend on mental health care and the worrying reality, as the nation’s leading youth mental health organisations unite for a six-point action plan.
A nationally representative survey by Empirica Research commissioned by Orygen, Australia’s Centre of Excellence for Youth Mental Health, has revealed:
But both figures are a long way from reality.
About 8 per cent of total health expenditure goes to mental health. This is despite mental ill-health accounting for about 15 per cent of the national burden of disease.
Young people are at the frontline of Australia’s mental ill-health crisis. Research published in The Lancet last year showed that up to 75 per cent of all mental ill-health onsets by the age of 25. That’s particularly alarming given almost 2 in 5 young Australians have experienced mental health issues – an increase of 50 per cent since 2007.
Australians clearly understand the scale and urgency of that crisis, with 80 per cent of voters in a new YouGov poll saying the government should do more to tackle rising rates of youth mental ill-health, and 75 per cent of voters supporting increased funding for youth mental health, even if it means reallocating resources from other areas.
“There is a deep silence from Canberra when it comes to youth mental health, but what our surveys clearly show is that Australians understand there is a crisis and they want it taken seriously,” Orygen Executive Director, Professor Patrick McGorry, said.
“Australians have been suffering in silence but at last they have found their voice. There is a clear mandate here: Australians, across all demographics, overwhelmingly support greater investment in youth mental health.
“This is now Australia’s major health crisis and it is impacting life expectancy and reducing productivity, weakening our society. It is imperative that we act now, or the ramifications will be felt for generations to come. The primary care investments announced so far will have a very limited effect on this crisis.”