Right care, first time, where you live

About our research

Australians have been through many challenges in recent years due to a major drought, devastating bushfires, COVID-19, and economic recessions. Young people are particularly vulnerable, and potential consequences will have long-lasting impacts within individual, social and economic outcomes.

The University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre has been awarded a $12.8 million investment from the BHP Foundation. We will be working with communities across urban, regional, and rural-remote Australia to identify and respond to the unique needs of young people across the contintent.

Working with eight Primary Health Networks, we will be co-developing decision-support tools using systems modelling and simulation to guide investments in sustained, coordinated and digitally-enhanced youth mental health care. These decision-support tools will navigate communities’ greatest challenges and coordinate the delivery of mental health in a responsive and dynamic way.

This project - Right Care, first time, where you live – brings an evidence-based discipline to investments in Australia’s youth mental health systems that will provide young people with timely access to the right level of care, delivered early in the course of illness, and for a sufficiently long-period, to ensure that they thrive economically and socially.

This means that more young people get back on a positive developmental trajectory towards enhanced social, educational and vocational functioning – back to school, back to work and thriving in their communities.

The five-year program is enabled by the BHP Foundation, which works to address some of the world’s most critical sustainable development challenges. In Australia the Foundation supports innovative partnerships that are designed to:

• Aid the development of young people through initiatives related to early childhood, STEM education and mental heath and well-being.
• Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and organisations in their drive towards more effective governance and self-determination.

CSART

CSART is an international alliance of centres of excellence in applying systems modelling to address complex health and social problems. CSART partner institutions are based in Switzerland, Canada, the US, the UK, Colombia, & Australia. They work at the intersection of computer science, data science, systems science, health and behavioural sciences and citizen science to put better analytic tools in the hands of decision makers.

The alliance brings a depth of experience in delivering sustainable models to the ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ program. Their unique expertise also supports the evaluation of the systems modelling and facilitates intellectual contributions from a range of global health partners.

We're proud to work with CSART on the open exchange of knowledge to extend the program’s international applicability and reach.