Is headspace making a difference to young people's lives?

Headspace aims to improve the mental health and social and emotional wellbeing of young people in Australia through the provision of evidence-based, integrated, youth-centred and holistic services. In January 2013, the Australian Government Department of Health (DoH) commissioned a consortium of researchers from the Social Policy Research Centre and the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW Australia; Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University; and the Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia to evaluate the effectiveness of headspace. The evaluation aimed to: • examine young people’s access to and engagement with the centre-based program including the demand for services at centres and barriers and facilitators to service use • assess the outcomes of young people who have received services from headspace to determine the effectiveness of the treatment • assess the centre-based program’s service delivery model including aspects of the model that are most and least effective in assisting headspace to meet its objectives, and • conduct a cost effectiveness analysis of the program as it currently operates, as well as an expanded version of the program that seeks national coverage. This report presents the evaluation findings.

[1]  Deborah Bybee,et al.  Fidelity Criteria: Development, Measurement, and Validation , 2003 .

[2]  P. Caputi,et al.  Early access and help seeking: practice implications and new initiatives , 2011, Early intervention in psychiatry.

[3]  Paul Badcock,et al.  Sexual identity, sexual attraction and sexual experience: the Second Australian Study of Health and Relationships. , 2014, Sexual health.

[4]  S. Zubrick,et al.  The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents: Report on the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing , 2015 .

[5]  V. Pérez,et al.  Optimal cutoff point of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression according to normal levels of social and occupational functioning , 2011, Psychiatry Research.

[6]  I. Hickie.  Contributing lives, thriving communities: report of the national review of mental health programmes and services , 2015 .

[7]  Anthony F Jorm,et al.  Help-Seeking for Substance Use, Anxiety and Affective Disorders Among Young People: Results from the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing , 2010, The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry.

[8]  Abigail Powell,et al.  Are we reaching them yet? Service access patterns among attendees at the headspace youth mental health initiative. , 2013, Child and adolescent mental health.

[9]  L. Hillier,et al.  From blues to rainbows: the mental health and well-being of gender diverse and transgender young people in Australia , 2014 .

[10]  I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt,et al.  Mechanisms Linking Social Ties and Support to Physical and Mental Health , 2011, Journal of health and social behavior.

[11]  Abigail Powell,et al.  'They don't treat you like a virus': youth-friendly lessons from the Australian National Youth Mental Health Foundation. , 2012, Health & social care in the community.

[12]  E. Murphy,et al.  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples , 2015 .

[13]  Megan Price,et al.  Help-seeking among indigenous Australian adolescents: Exploring attitudes, behaviours and barriers , 2013 .

[14]  F. Deane,et al.  When and how do young people seek professional help for mental health problems? , 2007, The Medical journal of Australia.

[15]  N. Jacobson,et al.  Clinical significance: a statistical approach to defining meaningful change in psychotherapy research. , 1991, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[16]  Anthony F Jorm,et al.  Mental health of Indigenous Australians: a review of findings from community surveys , 2012, The Medical journal of Australia.

[17]  A. Korten,et al.  “Mental health literacy”: a survey of the public's ability to recognise mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment , 1997, The Medical journal of Australia.

[18]  A. Psychologist.  Engaging Australian Aboriginal Youth in Mental Health Services , 2010 .

[19]  D. Hermens,et al.  headspace ‐ Australia's innovation in youth mental health: who are the clients and why are they presenting? , 2014, The Medical journal of Australia.

[20]  S. Karterud,et al.  The symptom and function dimensions of the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale. , 2012, Comprehensive psychiatry.

[21]  F. Deane,et al.  Discrepancies between parent- and adolescent-perceived problem severity and influences on help seeking from mental health services , 2012, Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry (Print).