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policy and advocacy submissions
Advocating for young people and their mental health and wellbeing is an essential part of our work. This includes responding to Government inquiries and requests for advice, as well as providing youth mental health insights and recommendations.
Read our latest policy and advocacy submissions for more information about how headspace helps to improve outcomes for young Australians and those who support them.
January 2025
In January 2025, the NSW Parliament sought input and advice on the impact of pornography on people’s health and wellbeing, including its impacts on body image, respect and consent, and on different groups of people.
Our submission highlighted the candid experiences of young people and family members and promoted the work of “It’s Time We Talked”. Young people and family recognise positive reasons for choosing to access pornography, as well as being concerned about the unrealistic expectations and harmful attitudes that it can cause. They call for open conversation and education about safe use of porn, whilst holding the companies that produce and disseminate harmful pornography to greater account.
October 2024
In August 2024, the Minister for Health and Aged Care initiated a Parliamentary inquiry into the health impacts of alcohol and other drug use in Australia.
Many young people experiment with alcohol and other drugs (AOD), and some can experience problems relating to their use. Our submission focused preventing harmful AOD use and enabling early intervention using family-based approaches, digital supports and other innovative approaches. Our submission also highlighted the need for integrated AOD and mental health supports, particularly for young people, given the links between poor mental health and AOD use.
October 2024
Young people in the youth justice system are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of Australian communities; many have complex, interrelated needs that cannot be met by the youth justice system. Rather, detention can be traumatising and further entrenches cycles of disadvantage.
Our submission to the Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry into Australia's youth justice and incarceration system highlighted the need for responses that uphold human rights and address the underlying factors that contribute to contact with the youth justice system. We argue it is critical to address the over-representation of First Nations young people in detention, with prevention, early intervention and therapeutic alternatives that are owned and controlled by First Nations communities, and that help young people build connections to culture, family and kinship.
Our submission incorporates views from members of the headspace First Nations Youth Advisory Council.
October 2024
In October 2024, the National Mental Health Commission sought feedback on draft advice to inform the Government’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy. headspace and yourtown joined together to respond to the draft advice, with a focus on responding to young people at high risk of suicide.
Our submission urged Government to finalise the national strategy, along with an implementation plan and dedicated funding. We highlighted a number of opportunities to strengthen youth suicide prevention, including: tailoring strategies to specific priority populations; including families and peers in youth suicide prevention; and recognising the role of postvention in suicide prevention.
September 2024
More and more young people are being diagnosed with ADHD. It can have a lifelong impact, but treatment and support can make a significant difference.
The Tasmanian Parliamentary Inquiry into the assessment and treatment of ADHD and support services for people with ADHD was established to report on the adequacy of access to ADHD diagnosis and post-diagnosis supports and medications, workforce development needs, and the cost of failing to provide adequate services.
In our submission, we highlight that young people and families need to be able to access assessments, medication and support without undue delays or costs. This needs more qualified and skilled professionals, working in more services that can support people with ADHD.
August 2024
Bullying (including cyberbullying), harassment and discrimination can significantly affect a person’s performance at school, university, TAFE or work, and can increase the risk of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide.
The Tasmanian Parliamentary Inquiry into bullying and discrimination was established to report on these experiences in Tasmanian schools, what impact they have, and what is needed to prevent and remedy them.
Our submission argues that students and families need to be involved in developing positive school cultures, and that school staff need training to help them respond when a student is experiencing bullying.
July 2024
Social media is often blamed as a factor contributing to rising rates of poor mental health among young people – but young people tell us, and the research shows, social media use brings benefits not just risks of harm.
The Commonwealth Joint Select Committee on social media and Australian society was established to consider the influences and impacts of social media on Australian society, including the use of age verification for social media platforms. In our joint submission with Orygen, we encouraged the Committee to consider ways government can use policy and regulatory levers to support young people to benefit from social media use, while protecting them from the harms of social media and online platforms.
April 2024
This joint submission with the Black Dog Institute highlights support for legislative amendments that aim to improve experiences for LGBTIQA+ young people. The submission details the need for change by drawing on data from headspace National and Black Dog, which illustrates the higher rates of mental ill health and discrimination experienced by LGBTIQA+ young people, compared to non-LGBTIQA+ young people.
The submission also outlines key areas within the amendments that have the potential to positively impact young people and their families, and outlines considerations for government as it progresses these amendments, including other ways in which the safety and wellbeing of young people can be supported.
April 2024
The Commissioner for Children and Young People has released a series of position and discussion papers, highlighting many of the priority issues that need to be addressed to improve outcomes for children and young people in Western Australia.
In responding to the questions raised in the discussion papers, our submission highlights the growing need for prevention and early intervention services for young people, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas of WA. While the headspace network provides a platform to deliver holistic, integrated services for young people, meeting demand, building a multidisciplinary workforce, and accessing support for young people with more complex needs are ongoing challenges.
March 2024
This inquiry was established to consider trends in vaping and tobacco use, the adequacy of current regulatory arrangements, and the effectiveness of current public health efforts to prevent and reduce the harm of tobacco use and vaping in Victoria.
Our submission notes the risks faced by young people vaping, and encourages the Victorian government to adopt evidence-based approaches to protect young people from the known harms of vaping.
January 2024
With significant overrepresentation of First Nations young people in the youth justice system, government needs to prioritising address the racism, underlying trauma and other contributing factors in youth justice reforms. Our submission to this inquiry also encourages the Queensland Government to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years, while investing in early intervention to prevent young people’s contact with the youth justice system.
January 2024
The need for accessible mental health support for young people has never been greater. As Australia’s national specialist youth primary care platform, headspace is a foundation of the mental health system. Sustaining and strengthening this platform in line with independent evaluation recommendations is critical, both for the life trajectories of young people, and for a system that is overwhelmed.
This submission seeks funding for headspace to:
- Grow the youth mental health workforce and increase access to young people by extending and scaling existing, effective programs.
- Strengthen engagement, outreach and inclusion for ‘hard to reach’ groups, including embedding safe, appropriate and inclusive practice, and providing cultural supervision.
December 2023
School communities have an important role in supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing – particularly at times when many young people are experiencing poor mental health. However, school educators and staff face many pressures, making it difficult to build the knowledge and skills and find the time needed to support individual students struggling with their mental health. Our submission to the Victorian inquiry into the state education system highlights the need to build strong links between schools and local health networks, to support school communities, encourage early help-seeking, and facilitate access to mental health services and supports.
November 2023
Many young people are worried about climate change and its effects on the planet, the community, and their lives – and as the climate changes, we are likely to see more anxiety, depression and ecological grief. These feelings are normal, adaptive responses to a serious problem. Young people will benefit from a statutory duty of care, and governments should be required to consider the impact of policies and decisions on the climate that will be inherited by children and future generations.
Our response to this Commonwealth Senate inquiry notes that this bill is an important opportunity to strengthen Australia’s approach to supporting the health and wellbeing of children, young people, and future generations.
November 2023
This commission of inquiry is conducting a holistic review of the funding of health services in New South Wales.
Our submission highlights the value of headspace’s national platform, which offers both an established network of centres and unique expertise and experience to respond to youth mental health needs. This combination of local presence and specialist experience provides scope and opportunities for New South Wales (or other states and territories) to build on the existing investment in headspace, particularly when there is an emerging need – such as following a natural disaster – or in developing innovative new programs.
October 2023
The Department of State Growth and the Department for Education, Children and Youth People are developing this strategy to ensure young people in Tasmania have access to the advice and support they need to navigate the transition from school to the world of work.
headspace offers work and study support to young people both online and in person at headspace centres. Our submission to Jobs Tasmania reflected on the success of these services, and the importance of providing integrated, place-based vocational services to support young people to engage in education, training and employment.
October 2023
This inquiry is considering current use of e-cigarettes (or vaping), the impact of programs aimed at preventing uptake, and the effectiveness of the New South Wales regulatory framework for vapes.
Our submission encouraged the New South Wales government to adopt evidence-based approaches to protect young people from the known harms of vaping, and to ensure any changes to the current situation – such as regulatory changes – had an appropriate lead time. We also highlighted the important role of youth mental health services in supporting young people who may be trying or using e-cigarettes and helping young people to address the underlying reasons for vaping.
October 2023
The Department of Social Services invited submissions to inform the development of the National Autism Strategy.
Our response highlighted the importance of ensuring autistic young people have access to timely, inclusive and effective mental health services. This requires additional capacity, particularly in youth mental health services, to provide integrated and holistic care to autistic young people. It also requires building and supporting the youth mental health workforce to have the skills and confidence to deliver accessible mental health care, with adaptations that cater for autistic young people’s cognitive, communication, social and sensory needs.
Incorporating lived experience perspectives is critical to delivering accessible services, where autistic young people feel visible, heard and understood when accessing mental health services.
September 2023
Our submission to this parliamentary inquiry focused on the mental health needs of young people, including the need for accessible, holistic, and integrated youth mental health services.
Building a sustainable, multidisciplinary workforce is essential to achieve this. Like health and social services, mental health services are facing workforce shortages amid increasing demand for services. A secure and ongoing supply of youth mental health clinicians and specialists as well as non-clinical youth and peer workers is needed to address current and continuing shortages.
September 2023
headspace National’s response to the discussion paper on Australia’s youth engagement strategy highlights mental health and wellbeing and access to mental health services as critical issues facing young people. We also highlight several other priority issues for young people which are social determinants of mental health, including: cost of living; education and employment; concerns about the future of our climate; and unsafe relationships and negative experiences with others.
Our submission outlines the headspace model as an example of embedding youth engagement at all levels of an organisation, and details different types of engagements and factors that can help to encourage youth engagement. These include implementing meaningful engagement frameworks, establishing clear purpose, roles and responsibilities and providing a range of supports to young people. We also highlight the importance of bringing an intersectional lens to all engagements with young people and ensuring a strong focus on cultural safety, child safety and clinical safety.
August 2023
This consultation will inform development of the next National School Reform Agreement. Our response addresses questions in Chapter 3 of the consultation paper, which focus on student mental health and wellbeing.
Our submission highlights the critical position of educators and staff in schools that enables them to identify changes in students’ behaviours and promote positive mental health and wellbeing. We highlight the importance of strong connections between schools, local health networks and primary health networks. We also highlight the need for adequate resourcing for schools to build educators’ knowledge, skills and confidence to support student mental health, implement wellbeing initiatives, encourage early help seeking and make appropriate referrals to other services.
July 2023
This inquiry considered the experience of renters and people seeking rental housing, rising rents, and actions government can take to reduce rents or improve renters’ rights.
Our response draws on young peoples’ concerns about renting and securing stable, affordable housing, and highlights the link between stable, affordable housing and mental health. Young people are already at increased risk of mental ill health and, as it becomes more difficult to access appropriate housing, the impacts on their mental health, financial stress, and disengagement with work and study also increase.
June 2023
Our response represents the experiences of key headspace stakeholders including: members of the headspace Youth National Reference Group; members of the headspace National Family Reference Group; general practitioners; and clinical professionals. Access to services and high out of pocket expenses are key barriers to young people being able to access ADHD diagnoses and support following diagnoses. Inconsistency across jurisdictions in relation to prescribing medication is also a key challenge. Our response emphasises the importance of: multidisciplinary teams, including the critical role that professionals within schools play in identifying young people with ADHD; strengthening training for clinicians in relation to ADHD diagnosis and management; and education and capacity building tailored for a range of audiences including GPs, clinicians, families, teachers and the broader public.
May 2023
Our response in relation to the emerging policy themes for this consultation reflects the views of young people and families. These views were sourced from the 2022 headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey, members of the headspace Youth National Reference Group and members of the headspace National Family Reference Group. Key insights from these stakeholders include: needing a greater focus on equity and equitable access to opportunities as part of a growing, productive, and resilient economy; broadening sustainability to encompass social sustainability; reframing ‘health’ as the promotion of wellbeing and the importance of mental health rather than as the absence of disease or illness; highlighting the importance of an inclusive society, with opportunities that are available to all people regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity or cultural background; and prioritising the voices of young people as they will be impacted by decisions made now.
March 2023
There is a strong correlation between mental health, financial stress and disengagement with work and study. Young Australians are significantly impacted by cost-of-living pressures, with those from multicultural and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds disproportionality affected.
In our response, suggestions we make to ease cost-of-living pressures include: low/no cost access to mental health services; investment in services that support young people to engage with work and study; identifying young people who are not accessing unemployment supports; and more adequate income and housing support payments.
February 2023
Mental health-related stigma and discrimination are significant barriers to help seeking. Our response to the draft strategy highlights measures to help address stigma and discrimination to support the mental health and wellbeing of young Australians, including: establishing culturally appropriate and safe frameworks and strategies to support First Nations and refugee and migrant young people; building mental health literacy, encouraging help seeking and fostering healthy conversations about mental health; utilising media and mental health education programs; strengthening data collection and evaluation of stigma reduction activities; and ensuring people with lived experience have input into program and services design and delivery.
February 2023
Research, data analysis and stakeholder engagement are critical features of the proposed operating model of Jobs and Skills Australia. In our response to the discussion paper, we encourage Jobs and Skills Australia to consider young people as a priority cohort. Two key areas in particular where we can add valuable knowledge and expertise are: the experiences of young people in finding and engaging with work and how this interacts with mental health; and integrated and cross-sectoral approaches in supporting young people to successfully engage in work and study.
December 2022
We are committed to the self-determination of First Nations people and to ensuring that our services are culturally safe and responsive to the needs of First Nations young people, their families and communities, and First Nations staff across the Centre network and headspace National.
Our response to the review highlights: work being undertaken by headspace including relationship building with the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, ACCHOs, PHNs and communities; and challenges in aligning with the National Agreement, such as the lack of accountability for government-funded organisations and the need for data systems that allow for First Nation perspectives.
November 2022
The Employment White Paper will provide a roadmap for Australia to build a bigger, better-trained and more productive workforce.
Almost one in five young people aged 17- 25 accessing headspace centres are not engaged in any form of employment, education or training. In addition, many headspace centres struggle to attract and retain the workforce they need to provide the holistic care and support that young people need, with sector wide shortages projected to worsen. Our submission highlights: the importance of young people having access to integrated, collaborative and cross-sectoral vocational supports to support them to remain engaged in work and study; and the need for immediate action to build a sustainable youth mental health workforce to support young people to be socially and economically engaged.
August 2022
We welcome the Victorian Government's commitment to establishing a new suicide prevention and response strategy, which is guided by an overarching objective such as to work towards zero suicides. Our response encourages consideration of age and educational stage as a critical factors for prioritisation, in addition to considering the experiences and perspectives of communities that are over-represented in self-harm and suicide statistics. Youth-specific considerations include access to mental health support, early intervention, intersectional and targeted approaches, supporting First Nations young people, opportunities to utilise technology, opportunities for prevention and postvention support through education settings, and better support for parents and carers.
February 2022
Our response highlights opportunities to better meet service demand and streamline access to mental health services. There is a need for: a greater focus on prevention and early intervention; an integrated, connected, sustainable and long-term solution to meet the needs of young people with more complex needs; improved vertical and horizontal integration of services and supports; and investment in a sustainable multi-disciplinary workforce.
headspace CEO, Jason Trethowan, and Youth Advisor to the headspace Board, Naraja Clay, also gave evidence in person to the Inquiry, in support of our response.
March 2021
This Select Committee was established to inquire into findings of the Productivity Commission Inquiry Report into Mental Health.
Our response highlights several key areas for reform and investment to support the mental health of young people in Australia, with a focus on: securing a youth mental health workforce for the future; implementing evidence-based strategies to prevent suicide; embedding vocational supports to assist young people reach their goals; integrating mental health and alcohol and other drugs services; improving access to mental health services; engaging family and friends in mental health and wellbeing services; and implementing targeted anti-stigma strategies.
January 2020
This inquiry was undertaken to consider the role of mental health in supporting economic participation and enhancing productivity and economic growth.
headspace National and Orygen delivered a joint submission, which outlines 17 recommendations for the Commission to consider as part of its initial assessment. These related to five key priorities: increasing access to effective mental health services and supports for young people across all stages.
of mental ill-health; improving education and workforce participation for young people with mental illness; reducing self-harm and suicide-related behaviours in young people; building a sustainable youth mental health workforce; and driving improvements through research, data, and outcome monitoring.
July 2019
The Royal Commission was asked to make recommendations on how Victoria’s mental health system can most effectively prevent mental illness, and deliver treatment, care and support so that all those in the Victorian community can experience their best mental health, now and into the future.
Our submission makes 11 recommendations to help inform the ongoing process and the overall strategic objectives of the Royal Commission and highlight work that could be undertaken more urgently to support young people and their families. Recommendations focus on investment in a range of measures including: access and wait time reduction; improving the social and emotional wellbeing of First Nations young people and culturally and linguistically diverse young people; digital mental health services; suicide prevention and postvention; and community engagement.