One in four young Australians are affected by a mental illness every year. Many young people have also been substantially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, making it more important than ever to ensure access to youth mental health services.

Headspace provides free or low cost youth-friendly support in four key areas—mental health, related physical health, substance misuse, and social and vocational support. It offers a safe, welcoming place where young people can get non-judgmental professional help and peer support, so they can tackle their challenges in a way that is right for them.

The additional funding will help headspace services that are experiencing high demand across the country to:

• expand services, improving access to high quality, youth friendly mental health support
• refurbish, expand or relocate headspace facilities to increase service capacity and make them more welcoming
• deliver new strategies such as triage and a walk-in single session approach, workforce training, and access to more group activities.

40 headspaces services located in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory will benefit from grants of up to $1.8 million each.

The grants are part of the government’s $152 million investment in the headspace Demand Management and Enhancement Program, to reduce wait times and make capital improvements.