All young people deserve to enjoy their formative years. 

This stage of life provides a platform to strengthen mental health and wellbeing into adulthood. It’s a time to form key relationships with peers, start to learn to live independently, engage in education and employment, and form identity.

Most mental health challenges present during this crucial period of development in people between the ages of 12-25. We know that these challenges can have a significant impact on a young person’s life.

Mind has been working with young people for more than 25 years. Our services offer holistic support centred on a young person's needs and delivered by a dedicated workforce featuring young people and people with lived and living experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges. We want to grow our service offering, enabling more young people to find help, hope and purpose in their lives.

This is why we have developed our new Young People Strategy 2023 – 2026. It demonstrates our roadmap for the next three years to grow our commitment to supporting young people to flourish while living with and working on their mental health. 
The strategy outlines how we will:

  • Continue to respond to the unique needs of young people, offering a flexible and person-centred approach.
  • Create a dedicated youth workforce to provide flexible and high-quality services to a wide range of young people.
  • Provide more opportunities for young people with a lived experience of mental health challenges to design and deliver new services that they want to access, including a new Lived Experience Advisory Team specifically for young people.
  • Create space to enable innovation to thrive. 
  • Draw upon our evidence base and outcome measures to advocate for change.

 

Partnering with young people 

We know that young people are the experts in their own life. Our support services are flexible and offer young people genuine choice and control. Every young person’s journey to a life of meaning and purpose is unique, which is why we walk alongside them and assist them to build courage and bravery by promoting their independence and autonomy in their individual recovery journey.

We are committed to partnering with young people to co-design innovative services and seek their collaboration to improve existing supports and workforce practices. 

We respond to the unique needs of young people by:

  • Encouraging them to set goals;
  • Developing their knowledge and skills to achieve their goals;
  • Focusing on their strengths, values and support preferences; 
  • Empowering them to define wellbeing in their own lives; and
  • Connecting them to family and community where appropriate.

 

Workforce development 

We are committed to creating a dedicated youth workforce to provide flexible and high-quality services to a wide range of young people. This includes ensuring our peer workforce is increasing in line with targets set in our Lived Experience Strategy (PDF 1.95 MB). We aim to have at least 20% of our workforce comprising people with a lived experience by 2026.We will build upon our expertise to ensure our staff are specialists across the areas our staff and clients said they needed support with, including:

  • understanding the intersection between trauma and development;
  • working with gender diverse young people;
  • ensuring services are culturally safe;
  • alcohol and other drug (AOD) and harm minimisation strategies;
  • treating eating disorders; and
  • supporting people who are neurodiverse. 

 

Co-design 

We are committed to providing more opportunities for young people with a lived experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges to contribute to our work, including through new governance structures. We are a recognised leader in the delivery and innovation of lived experience approaches in mental health. We strive for meaningful participation with clients, carers and families, to co-design processes and challenge biases. We firmly believe in the value and expertise of those with lived experience of mental health and recovery to help foster the recovery of others.

We are extending this commitment by introducing a dedicated Lived Experience Advisory Team made up of young people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. We will also strengthen mechanisms to ensure that our outcome reporting and My Better Life data is better used to inform current practice and improve outcomes for young people. Collaboration and partnership are hallmarks of our service ethos. We are committed to engaging in new partnerships in service delivery, digital applications and research that complement our approach to young people. 

 

Innovation 

We are committed to creating innovative, evidence-informed approaches to service design and delivery for young people. We are continuing to explore innovative approaches to mental health support in line with our values and frameworks of practice. We will strengthen our approach to supporting young people by developing a clear consistent service model for delivering mental health care with a specific focus on young people. 

 

Advocating for change 

We are committed to advocating for a mental health system where young people have the opportunity to influence the future of services and are a leading voice in service design and delivery.  

Our dedicated research and advocacy team is working towards an integrated mental health and wellbeing system, inspiring mental health organisations – including our own – to make services for young people more responsive and effective. We draw upon compelling evidence that shows our approach works and we will continue to use this to advocate for the value of these supports designed to benefit young people.

 

We want to hear from you 

We value the contributions and feedback from young people. If you’d like to be involved in future co-design opportunities, please email [email protected] 

Got an idea or some feedback on how we can improve mental health support? Please reach out via social media (Facebook or LinkedIn) or head to the chat function on our website. 

 

Our current services specific for young people 

Sub-acute bed based care 

Residential Rehabilitation 

Outreach Services

Homelessness

  • Sandridge Clifton Hill- VIC

Out of Home Care

  • Keep Embracing Your success (KEYS) South home- VIC (partnership led by Anglicare Victoria)
  • Keep Embracing Your success (KEYS) East home (partnership led by Mackillop Family Services)

Psychosocial support 

Family and Carer support

Psychoeducation

  • Rainbow Recovery- National
  • Youth Recovery College- National 

Lived Experience

  • Peer cadets - Vic