Australia’s government gives a huge $11 million to a program that supports youth with complex mental health issues.
Minister for Mental Health Bronnie Taylor said the Youth Com-munity Living Supports Services (YCLSS) program will be funded for another five years to give more 16-24 year-olds a sense of confidence and independence.
“This program provides comprehensive wrap-around care to young people living with complex mental illness and aims to re-duce their future risk of chronic disability, frequent hospital stays or long-term care,” Mrs Taylor said.
“It’s an impressive collaboration between our local health dis-tricts, which provide clinical care, and NGO partners, which pro-vide practical and social support.”
Many of the young people supported by YCLSS have been diag-nosed with a complex mental illness, as well as dealing with homelessness or drug or alcohol addictions, and limited educa-tion and work opportunities.
“We want more young people to be excited and hopeful for their future,” Mrs Taylor said.
“This program provides much-needed daily life support to its participants, such as helping them to access other support ser-vices, follow their clinical treatment plan, find work or study op-portunities, access safe housing, and develop a healthy daily rou-tine.”
In the three years to June 2019, YCLSS provided 110,000 hours of support to 360 young people, with significant number of these (15 per cent) of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background.
On average, each young person received 306 hours of direct support and many of these reported a boost in self-confidence and self-efficacy.
Wellways Australia has been engaged to deliver the program in the Hunter New England, Nepean Blue Mountains, Northern NSW, South
Western Sydney and Western Sydney Local Health Districts to 2024.
Since 2015, YCLSS has been allocated almost $25 million by NSW Government. It forms part of the NSW Government response to Living Well: A Strategic Plan for Mental Health in NSW 2014-2024.
