Federal Budget 2024-25: What did young people think about what was included for youth mental health?
May 16, 2024
The 2024-2025 Federal Budget was released on Tuesday 14th May 2024. Below you'll find the key inclusions for mental health, as well as perspectives from young people.
In a promising move to enhance mental health support, the Government has allocated $588.5 million in a national low intensity digital mental health service that will be free and without the need for a referral.
This will address an important gap for young people experiencing mild symptoms of mental ill-health, which may be the early signs of something even harder. It’s so important that services are appropriate for where a young person’s mental health is at. Always directing them into clinical settings or crisis support might not lead to the best outcomes and puts extra pressure on those services.
It's great to see a focus on digital services and encouraging to see that there is interest in having Australians receive free support early. However, I feel there is a gap in terms of early intervention and education. While a free, digital low-intensity mental health service would be great, what are the government planning to do in terms of educating Australians to notice and be aware of early signs that they are navigating a potential mental health concern to begin with?"
Bella Cini, Member of batyr's National Youth Advisory Group
Young people have been telling us that cost of living pressures have been really hard on their mental health. Acknowledging this, the Government's measures include low-income tax cuts and adjustments to the Medicare levy threshold. Additionally, $427.4 million over four years supports university students, particularly in fields like nursing, social work, and teaching.
Efforts to address mental health disparities among First Nations Australians include $12.8 million over four years for programs like the Indigenous Youth Connection to Culture, aiming to reduce suicide rates and improve mental health outcomes.
As leaders in lived experience, batyr welcomes support for the mental health and lived experience workforce, with $27.1 million to fund the headspace Early Career Program, the establishment of a national professional association for peer workers, and the delivery of a workforce census.
As an organisation that trains young people to utilise their lived expertise in preventative education settings, we’re excited to see how this workforce development can support young people in all kinds of lived experience roles.
Funding was also announced to co-designing models of care for mental health services tailored to young Australians, ensuring engagement and effectiveness. Designing care models alongside young people is so important to making sure young people can engage with them effectively and that they create the right outcomes.
I think it’s positive to see investment in a few interventions that eliminate the requirement for referral, which can be one barrier for young people to receive help. I was also really pleased to see mention of co-design, with funds being put towards this approach as a way of targeting critical system gaps."
Melanie Philippou, Member of batyr's National Youth Advisory Group
The Government has also committed $35.9 million over four years for a number of mental health and suicide prevention services to give them more funding certainty. Short funding cycles have been an issue that the sector has been raising for years so it’s affirming to see this starting to be addressed.
We are glad to see continued funding for the Good Sports Program, an alcohol management program for community sporting clubs, alcohol and other drugs treatment services in areas of identified need. Harmful alcohol use can be both a response to, and a cause of mental ill-health. Through batyr’s work with sporting clubs across Australia, we know the powerful role they can and do play in supporting young people’s mental health.
These investments signal progress towards comprehensive and culturally appropriate mental health services for young Australians, fostering hope for system reform. While we are hopeful that this momentum will translate into meaningful changes, many young people feel that the funding fell short. We asked young people what they thought of the funding announcements;
I would have loved to have seen the government focus on taking greater steps towards making mental health services more accessible and stable for all Australians, allowing people who need it most to have consistent access to psychology and mental health care by qualified professionals the individual chooses, feels safe with and meets their individual needs.”
Noa O’Reilly
It would have been great to also see funding that supports more programs and solutions that are holistically addressing the complex intersection of experiences young people face, such as between cost of living, the housing crisis and mental health.”
Melanie Philippou
It’s great to see these investments however, it doesn't seem as though there’s much investment to better support GP services which is a huge issue for Australians at the moment, particularly with issues in finding a doctor with availability, and ability to bulk-bull. Shortage of affordable GP services is heavily impacting young people's ability to seek appropriate help. It would have been nice to see more investment in this space in relation to mental health.”
Bella Cini
I’m so happy to see that funding has been allocated to mental health care particularly for those with complex mental health concerns. I would have loved to see more funding which focused on the ‘missing middle’ and I’m always advocating for reforms in the inpatient system so would have loved to see some allocations there also. However I strongly believe that any and all funding for mental health services is very much needed and a step in the right direction.”
Ellen Armfield
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis and is in immediate danger of harming themselves or others, call 000. You can find a comprehensive list of mental health support services here.