FAQs

eheadspace clinicians are experienced youth mental health professionals, social workers, mental health nurses, psychologists and occupational therapists. If you want to know more about these professions and what they do, just ask an eheadspace clinician.

eheadspace is free but if you call 1800 650 890 from a mobile phone, your normal call charges apply.  Let us know if you are calling from a mobile and we can call you back.

It’s not unusual to feel nervous about getting help for the first time. Talking to someone new about what’s on your mind can take some time to get used to. If you are having trouble talking about your thoughts or feelings, you may find it useful to send an email – sometimes writing things down helps you sort out where to start. The more information that you can provide to eheadspace, the more eheadspace will be able to help you. Some helpful information to share would be:

 

  • how you’ve been feeling
  • if you’ve had any mental health issues before
  • if you’re using alcohol or drugs
  • if you’re not sure what you want to work on
  • whether you’re in crisis or worried about your safety
  • if you’ve had contact with a mental health professional or service before
  • if emotions arise during a session, such as sadness or anger (you can share this with your eheadspace clinician)
  • if you have concerns about getting help online
  • if you don’t understand something the eheadspace clinician is saying

eheadspace will try to respond to your email as soon as possible, we aim to respond within 2 days but there are times when it may take longer than this.

Young people or family members must register to use the service. To register you don’t need to provide a full name, but you will need to provide an email address. You don’t need to provide your name on the phone either.

When you talk to an eheadspace clinician, what you say is kept confidential. Parents or loved ones can be supportive during difficult times. Depending on your circumstances, you may want to talk to eheadspace about how to talk to parents or loved ones.  If you are under 16, eheadspace would prefer to let your family know you are in contact with us – if you have concerns about this please let us know.

Every effort has been made to ensure that all contact with the eheadspace service is secure and confidential. When you talk to someone at eheadspace nothing said (or written) can be passed on to anyone else without your permission.

There are a few exceptions, such as if we are concerned about your safety or the safety of someone else. In these instances, the eheadspace clinician will try to talk to you first about what needs to happen and what additional supports you may need to help you be safe. If necessary, we may need to pass on your contact information (if you have supplied it) to authorities who can help protect you and/or others, such as an emergency service or the police. Where possible, we will let you know if our concerns reach the point where we need to involve other services.

Read more about confidentiality and privacy

eheadspace aims to support young people with the concerns they come with – generally this means short term support.  Some problems might need a bit longer and some people might need to come back. The eheadspace clinician can help you to clarify the issues and areas you will work on together and you can talk about how long you might need the support of eheadspace.

If you prefer to keep your contact with one clinician you can let us know and we will discuss options with you. You might make regular appointments when you can be guaranteed access to ‘your’ allocated clinician (except in unusual circumstances). If you just log on, we can’t guarantee your clinician will be working or available.

Let us know if you’re already linked with other support services. For example, this could be a local mental health service, another online service or your local doctor or school counsellor. We might ask if we can talk to your other services to make sure we’re all working together. Having contact with many services especially when they are not working together, can be unhelpful.

We encourage you to try and only use one online and telephone service. This means the online service is better able to coordinate with any face to face services you have. It also means that more young people are able to get help if services are not doubling up. If you have contact with other services, please let eheadspace know and we can talk about what this means and agree on next steps together.

You can let us know if you have a preference to speak with a specific clinician. However, the clinician you want may not always be available. Making an appointment might be one way to make sure we can meet your needs as much as possible.

If you are having trouble accessing any of the eheadspace functions on the website, please give feedback through our feedback form.

Family members or other adult supports of a young person who is 12 - 25 years, might use eheadspace if you:

  • want to chat about what’s going on in the young person's life
  • need support seeking information about services for young people and families
  • are looking for parenting resources
  • are worried about your young person’s mental health which may include concerns about depression, anxiety, isolation, drug and/ or alcohol use
  • are feeling isolated or alone

All eheadspace clinicians are available to talk to adults supporting young people.

There are also specialty family clinicians on our team.

It’s important to tell eheadspace if you are having thoughts about harming yourself. Sometimes young people who are assessed as being at serious risk of harm may be referred and supported to access other services for further support and assessment. Sometimes eheadspace cannot provide enough support to help a young person be safe. If we are concerned for your immediate safety, and the clinician thinks it’s necessary, eheadspace clinicians will contact the relevant emergency service. Where possible, eheadspace clinicians will let you know of any actions they are taking, unless doing so places you at further risk.

We are obliged to try to protect you and/or others if the information you give us tells us that:

  • you are being seriously hurt by someone else

  • you are thinking of seriously harming yourself
  • someone else is being, is likely to be, seriously hurt by you or another person

 

If we need to contact emergency services to get extra help for you (or someone else) we will try to make sure this happens in a way that doesn't put anyone at risk or harm.

eheadspace family clinicians are experienced youth mental health professionals with additional family experience or family therapy training.  Our team includes, social workers, mental health nurses, psychologists and occupational therapists.

There are family clinicians available at eheadspace on particular days.

There are three ways to contact eheadspace family clinicians:

 

Appointments: You can request an appointment with a family clinician. We recommend phone appointments, but you can also request a webchat appointment if you prefer.

Depending on the busyness of the service and which staff are available, you may have an initial session with an available clinician. If you need further support our clinician may recommend and help organise an appointment with a family clinician.

eheadspace can help by listening, talking to you about what’s going on for your young person, giving you information about what help is available and how to assist your young person. We will be happy to discuss with you different approaches and respond to your particular needs and situation.

Some adults supporting young people feel apprehensive about getting help. Our family clinicians are experienced in supporting families and other adult supports who come from many and varied situations and backgrounds. We will work with each person on your specific questions or goals.

The more information that you can provide to eheadspace, the more eheadspace will be able to help you.

Our family clinicians may ask you about some or all of the following:

  • Your young person’s situation
  • What you may be needing, as well as the needs of your young person (their mental health issues, drug and alcohol use, risk, services involved etc.)
  • A little information about your family’s history
  • If you have contact with any other services

You have to be registered to use the chat and email features on eheadspace. The information provided when you register helps us:

 

  • understand the types of people using eheadspace (age, location, postcode etc)
  • make sure we have enough information to help you
  • locate services in your local area if you need them
  • advocate and speak up for the needs of young people using eheadspace

 

Young people who make their first contact with eheadspace on the phone will be asked to provide the same information. If eheadspace needs to contact you via email, we will use the email address provided in registration. We recommend you use an email account that you do not share with anyone and only you know the password. Correspondence with eheadspace, web chat and emails will only be read by the eheadspace team.

Our system keeps a record of phone, web chat and email conversations. We also collect your IP address, your Internet Service Provider and the date and time you access the site. This information is securely stored and we have regular checks to make sure the information is safe. You can ask the clinician you’re speaking with for more information about this.

We don’t know. It depends on the type of phone bill you receive. If this is a concern for you, try calling us from a public phone or your own mobile. You could also try to find out if other 1800 numbers appear on the bill. If they do appear, the eheadspace phone number is also likely to appear.

As eheadspace is a clinical service we must prioritise responding to young people who need therapeutic support, and unfortunately this means we are not in a position to assist you with your work.

To answer some questions for your assignment/research, please check the following links on our website for relevant information:

Please see the headspace “Work with Us” section for any positions available for clinicians at eheadspace.

 

eheadspace employs: Social Workers, Mental Health Nurses, Psychologists and Occupational Therapists

We value and welcome your feedback, please let us know your thoughts and suggestions about our services.

Please be advised that compliments may be used and published by eheadspace for promotion and to engage help seeking behaviour. No personal or identifying information will be used. If you do not want your compliment to be published please let us know.

If you are experiencing a technical issue with eheadspace please complete this form. 

If you would like to provide feedback including making a complaint or providing a compliment or suggestion please complete this form. 

IMPORTANT

You must not submit any material to eheadspace feedback which is obscene, threatening, depicts violence or pornography or is offensive in any other way.  If you do, we may suspend your account and will notify the police as appropriate.