Canberra’s newest mental health service is a service with a difference. The ACT’s first Safe Haven, which opens in Belconnen today, is “a safe, welcoming space for people in distress if they’re experiencing mental health issues, or just life issues,” says Kate Russell.

She’s one of three peer support workers – all people who have experienced emotional or mental distress themselves, and who know what it’s like to grapple with illness or depression, to feel stressed or isolated, and to come out the other side.

“This is a place where [people experiencing distress] can come in and have a conversation with someone who really understands,” said Emma Davidson, ACT Minister for Mental Health. “They can help you navigate our mental health system to find the right service at the earliest point.”

For someone struggling with mental illness, speaking to someone who has been through similar experiences can be “really pivotal”, another peer support worker, Ben Martin, believes.

“You get so used to talking to clinicians, doctors, and psychologists,” he said. “Obviously, they’re not usually able to draw on their own experiences, even if they have some themselves. But as soon as you talk to another peer, you can relax, and you can feel like you’re just automatically supported by that person, and you can share that journey together.”

The peer support workers say they wish such a service had been available to them years ago.

Mr Martin was diagnosed with bipolar in his early twenties. “It was certainly rough; it was like tumbling down a cliff,” he said.

If the Safe Haven had existed then, he would have sought it out. “I would have loved meeting other people who had similar experiences; that would have helped me at the time.”

The service is intended to offer early intervention – help before people reach a crisis point, and need to go to a hospital emergency department or need an in-patient stay, Ms Davidson explained.

“The real key to a Safe Haven is that it provides an opportunity for people to seek help at an earlier point in their mental health journey,” she said. “If we want people to [recover] sooner, the sooner we can connect people with the right service … the better.”

Talking to a peer support worker is also less fraught.

“Emergency departments have a lot of work they’re trying to manage, and it can be a really hard space to go to when you’re having psychological distress,” Ms Russell said.

“Having an alternative space for people to come to is incredible. Coming and speaking to someone here, and working out what’s going on, is [less daunting] than being triaged in the emergency department,” she said.

“When you’re in the thick of stress, walking into a clinical setting can sometimes be a little bit overwhelming, particularly hospital ED,” Mr Martin agreed. “If a less clinical option had been available, I would have drifted towards that straightaway.”

This service was designed in consultation with the community – carers, peak mental health organisations, emergency clinicians, and people with lived experience – who all felt that talking to someone with lived experience would offer more connection and understanding, Ms Davidson and Ms Russell said.

The Safe Haven facility is outside the Belconnen Community Health Centre. It feels hygienic without being antiseptic or oppressively clinical. One’s impression is of soft, gentle colours – cream walls, white flowers in a bowl, dove-grey sofas, lilac flowers, pine furniture. It soothes the nerves.

Safe Haven is not just for people with mental health conditions, but for all Canberrans 16 and older (including carers).

Stride Mental Health will operate the ACT service; it also runs two safe spaces in NSW. Safe Havens have also been set up in Europe, the UK, and the US.

A year-long pilot program will fine-tune the ACT service, and, Ms Davidson said, “contribute to the worldwide body of knowledge about how we can best support people who experience distress and mental health conditions”.

The ACT Government plans to set up a second Safe Haven on the southside, close to the Canberra Hospital emergency department.

The last year has been very hard for many Canberrans, as the community faced bushfires and the pandemic, and mental health has been an issue for some years, Ms Davidson remarked.

A youth navigation portal, MindMap, was set up in October, and Canberra Hospital has a new mental-health unit, with 10 extra beds for in-patients.

Safe Haven: Belconnen Community Health Centre, 56 Lathlain Street, open Tuesday to Saturday, from 4.30pm to 9pm.

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