Written by: kerriwalters
Tuesday, October 05, 2010 

I know I’m not unique and that every mum has been through this before, but as well as coping with all the challenges of a newborn there was a new daily emotion I wasn’t expecting when my daughter was born – fear.  Fear that something terrible will happen to my precious little bundle of joy.

Now, I don’t want to dwell on the fears of what may or may not happen to her in the future – I firmly believe in living in the present, but what if the statistics are so bad and I could do something today to make a difference, if not for her future but for the future of other children who may need help?

Alarmingly there’s a 1 in 3 chance that today’s parents will have a child who develops a mental health problem by the age of 25 and this year alone, 1 in 4 young people will experience a mental disorder.

Less than 30% of young people with a mental disorder get any professional mental health care.  Less than 20% of young people with a mental disorder get effective mental health care and, sadly, only 3% of young people with a mental disorder access specialist community mental health services – CYMHS (Child and Youth Mental Health Service) in Queensland.

These statistics are concerning, to say the least.

Better access to first line mental health services for young people at schools and from general practitioners (GPs) is the first place to start, something the Federal Government’s headspace program is designed for (see www.headspace.org.au).  However, this alone will not meet the needs of the 40% of young people that do not get better with first-line treatment, who urgently need access to more specialist assessment.

Without adequate bridging services that link GPs and school counsellors to the right specialist care, vulnerable young people sadly tend to drop out of treatment and descend into educational failure, drug abuse, homelessness, criminality and even death by suicide or accident.  This is tragic, especially when it could be preventable.

I’m sitting in the ClearThinking cube today to raise community awareness and money to fund this next stage of care.  I can hardly believe that these are the lengths I’ve had to resort to in order to get any kind of groundswell for what we’re proposing.

We need to convince the State Government to commit funding for a research centre that will provide an effective bridging service to ensure more young Queenslanders who need specialist help will get it.  One of today's VIP guests was Murrary Watt, Parliamentary Secretary for Healthy Living who said the State Government is aware of the need for early intervention and the importance research plays in providing better long-term outcomes for people with mental illness.

The ClearThinking youth mental health centre proposal includes an ongoing research team to track the progress of young people through specialist care with the ultimate goal of minimising drop-out rates and dramatically reducing the five to ten year period it currently takes for accurate diagnosis of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bi polar.

I don’t want to frighten you, but are you scared enough to help?

Tomorrow: can the community pressure the Government for change, how is funding committed

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