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Despite record government investment, too many Australians still find themselves lost in a ‘Google loop of despair’ when seeking mental health support. In our conversation with SANE Australia, CEO Rachel Green explains why the system leaves help-seekers confused and exhausted, and how the Digital Navigation Project offers a blueprint for connecting services, shortening wait times, and putting lived experience at the heart of reform. I t has taken Jeanette Chan I couldn’t cope, it felt like help couldn’t come fast enough.”
close to 10 years to arrive at a complete diagnosis for their mental health challenges. And they’re one of the lucky ones. The Melbourne-based mental health advocate, 27, had to become their own ‘broker’, trawling websites, signing up for endless newsletters and calling multiple helplines in a bid for answers. As a person from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, who lives at the intersection of not only cultures but diagnoses — including depression, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and an eating disorder — it was sheer persistence and courage that saw them find a way through Australia’s siloed mental health system. “I remember looking online and figuring out there was a service for young people like me who had anxiety,” they recall. “I built up the courage to call. And then I was told that it’d be a 4-6 week wait for an intake appointment, and then a similar timeframe for my first appointment. “I was devastated and lost. I’d built up the courage, and when I asked for help, it wasn’t available to me when I could cope. And when
Help-seekers lost before they even begin Jeanette’s experience is alarmingly common — symptomatic of a proliferation of online mental health services and websites that don’t connect to each other or provide the tailored support options mental health consumers so desperately need. Despite more investment than ever before, with the Australian Government setting aside $588.5 million into digital mental health services over eight years from 2024-25 as part of the latest federal budget, greater investment does not automatically guarantee greater access to appropriate services. It’s a situation that places the onus squarely on help-seekers themselves to puzzle a way through the labyrinthine information available. “There’s an enormous education journey that ends up being required of people seeking help, who are often the least able to necessarily do that,” said Rachel Green, CEO of SANE — Australia’s leading mental health organisation for people experiencing complex mental health issues and a pioneer in digital psychosocial services.
Rachel Green CEO, SANE Australia
IMAGE | CASSAMENTO PHOTOGRAPHY
Prof. Nicola Reavley Deputy Director, Centre for Mental Health, The University of Melbourne
sane-australia
info@sane.org
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