Meet the changemakers – Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney
The Brain and Mind Centre’s Right care, first time, where you live Program builds an understanding of local mental health challenges and systems that support young people. It strengthens collaboration across the region and empowers community partners to work together in ways that lead to better outcomes for young people locally.
The Program applies a new evidence-based decision-support model to the challenge of youth mental health. Grounded in local data, insights, and the lived experience of young people who have navigated these challenges firsthand, the model supports smarter investment decisions so providers can deliver the right care early, ensuring timely access to services that prevent issues from escalating. This helps young people to get back to school, back to work, and thrive in their communities.
The changemaker series highlights the organizations, supported by BHP Foundation, that bring innovative solutions to complex social and environmental challenges. This time, we shine a light on the Right care, first time, where you live Program by the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Why is this work is needed
Depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders are among the leading causes of illness and disability in people aged between 10-19 years old. In Australia, between 2020-2022, 38.8%, or one in three people, aged 16-24 years had a 12-month mental disorder.
Despite this staggering statistic, the way that policy, system reform and strategic planning decisions are made in Australia largely lacks the necessary localised data and insights to get youth the mental health support they need.
This means that decision makers are restricted to inefficient trial and error approaches - leaving them lacking the agility needed to respond to the growing pressures on youth mental health and wellbeing, or to their changing needs over time.
The approach
The Right care, first time, where you live approach focuses on strengthening local mental health care systems so that solutions are delivered at the right scale to effect change. This creates real reform and leads to better outcomes for young people.
The Program works with communities to build a shared understanding of the factors shaping young people’s access to mental health support. By bringing together local data, evidence, and actively engaging with youth, it develops a tool that can guide investment decisions in youth mental health care. This helps ensure that these solutions are sustainable, coordinated and digitally enhanced.
This support allows leaders to navigate complex mental health systems and the challenging decision-making environment, strengthening and coordinating the delivery of mental health care in a responsive and dynamic way.The Program is developing and testing this process in eight diverse regions across Australia, from the Pilbara to Western Sydney. There is opportunity now to scale these models to benefit young people nationally and ensure transferability to international locations.
The progress so far and what we have learnt along the way
Since the Program began in 2021, systems are now live in six of eight local community organisations, known as sites, with three sites in development. These sites include ACT Health, Brisbane South Primary Health Network, Western Sydney Primary Health Network, (WentWest), Nepean-Blue Mountains Primary Health Network, Great Southern region in the Western Australia Primary Health Alliance and North Coast NSW Primary Health Network (Healthy North Coast).
In the 4 years since its inception, the program has been learning and evolving. For example, while initially the program focused on engaging with a broad selection of communities within a region, it has adapted to focusing more on understanding the site-specific investment priorities and decision-making processes.
At an individual and group level, the process to develop these systems is bringing people together who otherwise would have been disconnected. These people are often frontline service providers alongside policy makers and executive – generating valuable connections across the sector that help deliver youth mental health support.
One of the most significant achievements of the program so far is the greater involvement of young people in local planning and advocacy work.
Going forward, it plans to work on embedding these new tools and processes into ongoing policy and planning initiatives. The team will also look for opportunities to support each site as they move beyond the development of new mental health care systems, by tailoring its approach depending on the site’s reaction to the model to achieve this understanding.