Children as young as 12 are seeking help for stress and anxiety during the pandemic. This week, the ACT Government gave CatholicCare $40,000 to extend its services to young Canberrans with moderate to severe mental health issues.
“Young people have experienced a lot of rapid and significant changes since this pandemic was first declared in 2020,” said Emma Davidson, Minister for Mental Health.
“With lockdowns occurring all across the country and in Canberra, there have been elevated levels of stress and anxiety. Paired with the everyday stress and challenges of growing up, it’s really important for young people to have strong support networks in place to help navigate any issues they may face.”
Anne Kirwan, CatholicCare Canberra & Goulburn’s CEO, said the organisation was “super excited” to be offered additional funds for their Youth & Wellbeing program.
Through the program, youth outreach workers help young people aged 10 to 25 to manage their mental health and wellbeing, in aspects of daily life including relationships, school / work, housing, family life, coping, and self-esteem.
Over the last year, Ms Kirwan said, more people have applied for the popular outreach service, and there is now a substantial waiting list.
CatholicCare will use the funds to employ an additional youth mental health outreach worker for six months to provide telehealth (“and hopefully soon face to face”) support to 15 young people from their list.
“As time progresses and the impact of COVID is felt longer term, we think there will be an impact on the mental wellbeing and levels of resilience across our community,” Ms Kirwan said. “We are keen to work with our governments and ACT Health to see what supports can be put in place to address this need.”
CatholicCare had noticed a trend happening because of COVID and lockdown, Ms Kirwan said: some young people were deteriorating because they felt isolated and not could physically connect with others, while people with social anxiety might thrive during lockdown.
More young people were using CatholicCare’s telehealth services during lockdown; like last year, they needed and wanted to connect.
“You are not alone in this,” Ms Kirwan tells young people. “If you need support, reach out. There are services and supports here for you.”
For more information or to refer to CatholicCare’s Youth & Wellbeing – Mental Health Outreach Service, call 6163 7600.
Headspace and Mental Illness Education ACT (MIEACT) also help young people who need extra support, Ms Davidson said.
MIEACT has delivered the Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) across ACT schools, in collaboration with the Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing, to help young people build resilience and tools to take care of themselves. YAM is supported by the Black Dog Institute.
To help young people build their wellbeing toolkit and access support, the Youth Navigation Portal – a centralised digital app delivered by Marymead and funded by the ACT Government – will launch next month. The portal will provide an integrated source of information and easy access points for young people experiencing mental health challenges, and their peers.
- MIEACT online resources for young people and their families to build resilience: https://mieact.org.au/mieact-resources/
- COVID-19 community and mental health support: https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/community/access-help
