‘Naive to the politics’: Youth mental health service forced to close its doors

A vital youth mental health service will shut its doors next month with the immediate loss of support to 140 young people because its original grant was time-limited and state and federal governments have not stepped forward with funds to keep it going.

The Lilydale Youth Hub in Melbourne’s east provides counselling, peer support, family therapy and sexual health and substance misuse support to young people in the Yarra Ranges. Last financial year it provided 3651 sessions to clients.

Tyrell Mills, Lilydale Youth Hub marketing coordinator, client Sien Withers-Burke and Sue Sestan, chief executive of lead agency Inspiro at the hub.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

Between 40 to 50 young people ask for help each month from the service, which will be forced to close by December 31.

The hub’s lead agency, Inspiro, has requested further funding of $3.5 million over three years, or to access $600,000 in funds which were unspent due to COVID lockdowns.

Sien Withers-Burke, a non-binary 19-year-old pharmacy student and Yarra Ranges Council youth ambassador who uses they/them pronouns, credits the hub with increasing their happiness and assisting in accessing clinical psychology sessions, a referral to the Monash Health gender clinic as well as access to a university diploma course without an ATAR.

“A lot of life changes have happened that wouldn’t have been able to happen if it weren’t for the youth hub,” Withers-Burke said.

“I have realised a lot of things about my life that weren’t OK simply by being here.

“I am feeling better comparatively. It is still not great and that is why I want the youth hub to stay.”

Sue Sestan, chief executive at Inspiro, said the centre provided a wrap-around service for young people that could not be easily replaced by other services.

“Sometimes young people don’t seem to know what they need until there’s an incidental conversation,” she said.

The hub was awarded $3.5 million via the Eastern Metropolitan Primary Health Network and was fully operational by September 2021. But it has not spent the entirety of its grant.

Sestan said the federal and state elections, a change of government and caretaker periods had made the quest to seek additional funding difficult.

“I was incredibly naive about how political the environment currently is,” she said.

Representatives of the hub have attempted to meet twice with the federal Assistant Minister for Mental Health Emma McBride, but the meetings were cancelled. The hub and the local council have also written to the federal government, pleading for further funding.

Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Aged Care said: “The Australian government is working closely with the Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network and the Victorian government to ensure all young people accessing services at the Lilydale Youth Hub are connected with alternative supports in the Yarra Ranges region.”

Yarra Ranges mayor Jim Child wrote to Federal Health Minister Mark Butler and said the hub was “the only service of its kind that is accessible and available to young people in the Yarra Ranges. It provides a wrap-around service that fills critical health and wellbeing gaps within the municipality”.

Jane Price, the council’s communities director, said: “It is disappointing that ongoing funding is not forthcoming from either level of government.”

The state government launched a 10-year mental health plan in 2015, but Sestan said the funding for hubs like Lilydale Youth was not yet available.

The Eastern Metropolitan Primary Health Network could not fund the services after December 31 and had worked to decommission the hub for some months, chief executive Janine Wilson said.

“The time-limited funding that was provided to support this three-year program was originally to June 30, 2022. In recognition of the late 2021 COVID lockdown in Melbourne, this was extended to the end of the year.”

Withers-Burke said it was encouraging to see the changes in the young people who had accessed hub services such as group art therapy.

“Most of the people I saw in that group are still here today, but they are completely different people.”

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