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that works — with essential information around costs and availability readily available. 3 Enabling more seamless and warmer referrals via tools to help services talk to each other, saving help-seekers from having to repeat their stories over and over again. 4 Establishing greater mental health representation on the Council for Connected Care,
Ongoing and significant collaboration between all parts of the sector, across all jurisdictions, is a further dependency for turning these recommendations into real-world action. In the meantime, digital psychosocial services like those provided by SANE are providing a critical lifeline and complement to clinical care. SANE’s digital services — such as RecoveryClub and the SANE online community Forums — offer peer-supported recovery planning and help point people in the right direction for support with their complex mental health needs when they don’t know where else to turn. For people living with layered lived experiences like Jeanette, there’s no time to waste when it comes to improving help-seeking. And there’s no greater need than empowering people to live their most flourishing lives. “I ended up building what I now see was a patchwork of supports. It was so utterly exhausting,” said Jeanette. “I kept looking for treatment options. I kept showing up to appointments. I kept telling myself it was worth it. And I kept doing the work. Even now, I’m still always learning about the new services available to me. “Imagine the kind of impact we could achieve if we unlocked technology’s full potential to enable digital mental health platforms to speak to each other, backed by a reliable, AI-powered national database so that people could find help earlier.”
them more broadly, rather than simply visiting the GP. Managing feelings and emotions is not always strictly confined to mental health treatment alone,” said Professor Reavley. “The earlier we can connect people to this tailored support, the better. Early intervention support reduces the risk of poor mental health having a larger and ongoing impact on people’s lives.” A blueprint for fixing a fragmented system The Digital Navigation Project findings were launched to the Australian public for the first time in August 2025, along with a series of recommendations for fixing the problem. Rather than building something brand-new, these recommendations aim to strengthen and connect what already exists. The goal: to create a more inclusive, person- centred and user-friendly help-seeking experience, so that people can find help earlier for a faster recovery. According to the project report, this is possible with four key actions: 1 Developing a smarter search tool for both everyday people and clinicians, which matches needs to services across the whole care journey, and critically, is deployed and embedded in every service website, portal and pathway where people are seeking help.
to ensure mental health is a priority within Australia’s Interoperability Plan.
“As a society, we currently invest more resources into the technology behind buying a pair of shoes than we do for mental health care,” said Green. “Imagine what more funding could achieve if we unlocked technology’s full potential to enable digital mental health platforms to speak to each other, backed by a reliable, AI- powered national database.”
Learning from lived experience voices
There are no quick fixes when it comes to achieving better navigation of the mental health system. But one essential principle for success is the critical importance of co-design — and continuing to engage people with lived experience to sense- check any eventual solutions. “We know that a person’s mental health can change over time, and people’s needs evolve over time too. That’s why it’s so important to design a system that prioritises mental health consumers’ needs,” said Professor Reavley.
2 Enhancing the National Health Services Directory
to create a connected, standardised directory
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