The death of our beloved son in late 2024 was not just a personal tragedy – it was the result of a failing youth mental health system that is under-resourced, fragmented, and, in many cases, outright harmful to the vulnerable young people it is meant to support.
While government rhetoric promises investment in mental health, the reality is that families navigating this system find themselves abandoned in a labyrinth of long waitlists, unaffordable services, inadequate crisis support and dismissive treatment.
Our mental health system is under-resourced, fragmented, and, in many cases, outright harmful to the vulnerable young people it is meant to support.Credit:
Australia is facing a youth mental health crisis. Rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among adolescents have risen significantly in recent years. Mental health conditions are the leading cause of death for young people in Australia, a devastating reality that underscores the urgency of reform. Yet in NSW, and in other states too I suspect, the mental health system continues to fall short, particularly in addressing the needs of adolescents. For families like ours, trying to secure help for our child was an exhausting, disheartening and ultimately devastating process. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are models of best practice in youth mental health care that should be available in NSW.
One of the most glaring failures is the fragmented and inaccessible nature of mental health care. There is an alarming shortage of services, crisis support, and clear pathways for parents seeking help. There is a lack of integrated care between private and public services and between community and inpatient services.
The difficulty in navigating these fragmented services is exacerbated by the failure to recognise that adolescence does not suddenly end at 18. Despite government classifications, the developmental needs of vulnerable adolescents extend well beyond this arbitrary threshold. Turning 18 should not mean being forced into adult mental health services that fail to provide age-appropriate care or collaborate effectively with families. The adult inpatient units, where young people in crisis often end up, are not therapeutic spaces – and, in many cases, do more harm than good.
Parents are excluded from treatment discussions and provided little to no information about care and discharge plans. As loving and dedicated parents desperately trying to help our son, we were largely ignored and dismissed once he turned 18. When our son was admitted to hospital in a mental health crisis, we were not even notified. Privacy laws should never be a barrier to a young person’s safety and well-being – yet, under current policies, parents can be left in the dark when their child is at risk.
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Marginalising parents means that their vital insights into their child’s needs are disregarded. It is also extremely callous towards those who love and care most about a young person and are trying to do everything they can to support them. After his death, our formal complaint about our son’s care went unacknowledged and when we finally received a response, it arrived after four months – a reflection of a system lacking in accountability that treats young people and their families as afterthoughts rather than priority cases.
Despite these public system failures, there are specialist youth mental health services operating in the private sector that offer therapeutic, compassionate, and effective care for young people with complex needs. These facilities are tailored to adolescents and young people, with experienced professionals and environments designed to support rather than further traumatise vulnerable young people and their families. Unlike the public system – where in our experience, families are sidelined and crises are mishandled – these private services provide individualised care that engages young people and their families in meaningful, collaborative treatment.
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