Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I was very privileged to attend the launch of Central Sydney Headspace at Youthblock Health and Resource Centre in Camperdown in my electorate. It is a very good time to mention this because the government has recently established an Office for Youth Affairs, and the Central Sydney Headspace measure is a terrific next step in raising the issue of young people with a mental illness. I want to talk about this new service and how it will help young people with a mental illness who are potentially at risk of homelessness.

Headspace, the National Youth Mental Health Foundation, is a foundation for young people. It is targeted at 12- to 25-year-olds, and it delivers assistance on mental health issues, social wellbeing and economic participation. Youthblock, the venue for the launch of this new service, provides essential services to young people who are homeless or who are at risk of becoming homeless. Central Sydney Headspace will be setting up three one-stop shop centres. Youthblock at Camperdown will be one of them, South Sydney Youth Services in Redfern will be another and there will be another in Marrickville. South Sydney Youth Services is a service that I have had an enormous amount to do with over the years and it has consistently provided excellent support to many young people who are at risk of homelessness—young people with a dual diagnosis of a mental health issue as well a drug or alcohol issue and who often have nowhere else to turn.

These three centres will work together to bring services to young people. These will be services from across the levels of government so that young people will be able to go to one service and access all the support they need. This is the way the Rudd government prefers to support young people. Rather than trooping around from service to service, navigating complex support systems, they will be able to go to the one service and receive the help of people like a clinical psychologist, a social worker and a GP.

The launch was terrific. It was very well attended and there was a fantastic band, Total Revolution in Perspective. They were great young people with enormous energy and enthusiasm and were terrific musicians. There were a couple of rappers there as well who were absolutely marvellous, first rate performers. I really enjoyed the launch, and I enjoyed meeting the staff of the services that will be working so closely together. I particularly enjoyed meeting many of the young people who will use these services, have been using the services as individual services and will continue to use them in this new combined way, where the services will be working together to provide wraparound support for the young people who need it most.