headspace

headspace Community Awareness

The Community Awareness Team is primarily committed to work with headspace: Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation. The Community Awareness Team is heavily involved in establishing community awareness program at both a national and local level throughout Australia. The major roles of the Community Awareness team include:

Involvement with other elements of headspace in coordinating and rolling out a national community awareness program concerning youth mental health and alcohol and other drug use.
Consultation and on-going support/coordination of local headspace Communities of Youth Services (CYS) regarding their delivery of local community awareness programs. As a part of this role the Team has produced resource packages, offered continuing support to local community awareness staff, and conducted a national team building and support meeting in November 2008. Three further meetings of this sort are planned at the state level for the first half of 2009.
Systematic evaluation of community awareness outcomes. During 2008 the Team conducted a national population sample relating to mental health and service use of young people. The Team is currently initiating a national trial of community awareness interventions in regions around the CYS sites, and using a case-controlled design to compare their outcomes with areas where no CYS has been established. The latter project is also aimed at detecting consequent increases in service use by young people with mental illness.
Contributing to the evidence base for community awareness and other aspects of clinical practice by means of producing academic papers, reports, media commentaries and conducting on-going literature reviews.
Focus group studies of young people who use and do not use mental health services, and other groups relevant to the headspace client group.
Engagement with elements of the broader social environment and mental health and well-being fields, which promote community awareness and the use of mental health services.

Publications and Reports

Cohen, A.P., Medlow, S.D., Kelk, N.J., Hickie, I.B., Whitwell, B. (2009) Young people's experiences of mental health care: Implications for the *headspace* National Youth Mental Health Foundation. /Youth Studies Australia/ (in press)
headspace: Community Awareness Team (2008a) Resource Guide: Local Community Awareness Campaign. Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Sydney. Australia
headspace: Community Awareness Team (2008b) Community Awareness and Communications Plan: Template. Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Sydney, Australia
Hickie IB, Davenport TA, Luscombe GM, Fogarty AS. Findings from the headspace National Youth and Parent Community Survey. Melbourne, Victoria: Sense Advertising & Design, 2009
Kelk, NJ, Luscombe, GM, Medlow, SD, Hickie, IB (1009) Courting the blues: Attitudes towards depression in Australian law students and legal practitioners, BMRI Monograph 2009-1, Sydney: Brain & Mind Research Institute
Zmicerevska, N, Kelk, NJ, Groombridge, S (2008) headspace: National Youth Mental Health Foundation. Presented at Work Matters: Employment and wellbeing in mental health (VETE), 18 November 2008, Newcastle, Australia

headspace Community of Youth Services

Contact:

Ms Susie Purcell, Project Manager
T: +61 2 4627 9089
E:

headspace is funded by the Australian Government under the Promoting Better Mental Health - Youth Mental Health Initiative headspace National is a commonwealth funded initiative with its executive in Melbourne. headspace's purpose is to establish and evaluate new models of Youth Mental Health Services. It aims to do this by providing a number of communities of youth services (CYS) in different locations around Australia.

headspace MCSH is a CYS servicing the Campbelltown, Macarthur, and Southern Highlands region. The lead agency for headspace MCSH is the Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, based at Camperdown.

The project aims to improve the care of young people (12 - 25 yrs) with mental health problems by using a multidisciplinary youth friendly approach.

This will done by integrating General Practitioners with psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, and other allied health professionals. The project aims to improve outcomes by addressing the full range of youth patient's needs and increasing the capacity of service available.

headspace focuses on early intervention by improving access to innovative high quality care and enhancing the subsequent care received by young people experiencing their first mental health problem.

Key project areas

Clinical team

Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, GPs, educational and vocational rehabilitation, mental health nurse, drug and alcohol specialist.

Practice support

Co- location: facilitating clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to work within general practice.

Practice enhancement

headspace funds are available for GP waiting room refurbishment and waiting room computers to provide access to recognised mental health sites and software.

Practice management

Support for clinical and practice staff in the use of the new Medicare mental health item numbers.

Resources and training

Provision of patient education materials to assist in the delivery of primary mental health care, including:

psycho-education, relaxation,
sleep wake cycle management, drug and alcohol management
Mood gym - access and training
Small group supervision/peer review
Training in Mental Health First Aid for practice support staff.

headspace intake

headspace is now taking referrals. All referrals via:

T: +61 2 4627 9089
E:

The University of Sydney - Brain and Mind Research Institute