Innovative Youth Mental Health Program Will Help Provide the 'Right care, first time, where you live

Young people in the Nepean Blue Mountains region are struggling with their mental health and often have difficulty accessing, navigating and engaging with the services and programs that are available. Demand for services is high, with general practice data for the region indicating that 14% of patients between 4-17 years have a coded mental health disorder. Population health data also indicates that the region has a higher burden of mental illness and suicide compared to the NSW state average.

Wentworth Healthcare, provider of the Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network (PHN), is one of eight PHNs nationally working with the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre to develop and implement their own dynamic systems model, with their community as part of the ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ Program funded by the BHP Foundation.

The ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ Program co-creates a dynamic systems model that can provide a birds-eye perspective on what is happening in a particular region’s youth mental health system. A dynamic systems model is a decision support tool that can be used by decision makers to test ‘what-if’ scenarios. For example, what if we increased mental health education programs in schools? Would that reduce the number of young people going to emergency departments in acute psychological distress?

Co-Director of Health and Policy at the Brain and Mind Centre, Professor Ian Hickie, said that ‘Right care, first time, where you live’ aims to support regional decision makers to make evidence informed decisions on how to coordinate and fund youth mental health services in their local regions.

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