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Good morning everyone, and welcome to Mental Health Australia’s Policy Forum.
It’s good to be joining you again in person today, and hello to everyone joining us online.
I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land and I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations people today, and thank Uncle John for your generous welcome and your salient reminder about connection, inclusiveness and respect which underpins a healthier and fairer society for all Australians.
I also recognise everyone here with a lived and living experience of mental health challenges and thank you for your very generous contribution to improving our systems of support and care for all Australians.
To Peggy Brown AO, Mental Health Australia Board Chair and Board Director, Carolyn Nikoloski for your leadership of Mental Health Australia, and to all of the members of Mental Health Australia who I’ve now had the privilege over many years of getting to know, to work alongside, and I thank you genuinely for your guidance and your collaboration.
Thank you again for the invitation to join you today.
And just looking across the room, we are part of a sector that is growing and transforming.
Across Australia we're seeing an expansion in mental health services, support and care.
And this transformation isn't simply about increasing investment, of course that matters, it's about delivering better care, earlier intervention and fostering stronger partnerships.
As a specialist mental health pharmacist, and I've spoken to many of you before about my professional background, like many of you I saw firsthand in my day to day working life the impact of mental health challenges on individuals, on families and on communities.
And like you, I know the real impact of compassionate, person-centred, community-led care.
And now, I'm part of a government committed to building, alongside you, a better system.
And I'm proud to say that we're always listening, that we're acting alongside you and working together to build a system that better meets the needs of all Australians.
And today's forum is a powerful example of what is possible when we, when you, come together.
An opportunity to share ideas, to test them, to listen deeply, to challenge, and with one voice reflect the strength, diversity, inclusiveness and compassion of our sector.
Because real change will only happen when we work alongside one another across services, across levels of government, across communities, with lived experience at the centre.
And at the heart of this transformation is a simple truth: mental health support and care must be for everyone.
That's why we're working alongside you to introduce services that meet people's needs, wherever they are, whatever their circumstances.
For children and young people, our government is delivering a historic and necessary investment.
We're expanding the headspace network, creating headspace Plus and introducing new youth specialist care centres for young people with more complex needs, eating disorders, psychosis, personality disorders.
We're establishing Medicare Mental Health Kids Hubs to support children aged 0 to 12 years and their families and caregivers to seek mental health wellbeing, social, emotional and developmental advice and support.
For adults, there are now 50 Medicare Mental Health Centres right across the country where someone can walk in, to a welcoming space, often greeted by a peer worker who's walked in their shoes, and find support without a referral, without an appointment and for free.
And a new national early intervention service is also coming next year to provide free, low-intensity mental health support to people wherever they live.
For First Nations people, the Indigenous Australian Lived Experience Centre, now an independent First Nations-led organisation, will continue to elevate and amplify the voices of lived and living experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in mental health and suicide prevention, and genuinely learn from their millennia of experience in social and emotional wellbeing, connection to Country and to one another.
This will guide all governments to work in genuine partnership to deliver culturally safe care, including through the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Strategy developed in collaboration with Gayaa Dhuwi.
For expectant and new parents, a growing network of Perinatal Mental Health Centres is helping families find support during this important time when one in five expectant mothers and one in 10 expectant fathers experience perinatal anxiety and depression.
And for peer workers, there is funding for the first national census of peer workers, and I encourage everyone who is a peer worker, who works alongside peer workers, to have their say in this survey, because we want to be able to help to professionalise and mobilise the peer workforce to make sure that peer workers are decision makers, policy makers and part of genuine co-design and co-production.
So that census will be happening next year, and we will also be together establishing the first National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Peer Workforce Association.
At a system level, as many of you know, the final review of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement was tabled yesterday and has been released publicly, and I understand Commissioner Angela Jackson will be speaking about this later today.
I want to genuinely thank Mental Health Australia and your members for sharing your experience, your expertise, your insights with this review, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside you on a new agreement.
We're serious about helping people, all Australians, to live healthier, happier, meaningful, connected lives.
And that work is only possible because of each of you.
It's highly skilled and complex work and it does take its toll, and I want to thank you, personally, for your organisations, for your teams, and if you can take that back to your members right across the country, for the part that you play in creating a more mentally healthy Australia.
Let's keep working together, let's keep driving a real change, and let's help create a healthier, fairer, more connected Australia.
Thank you.