{"id":8820,"date":"2020-10-21T22:09:35","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T22:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=8820"},"modified":"2020-10-21T22:09:35","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T22:09:35","slug":"steps-toward-better-mental-health-for-young-australians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/10\/21\/steps-toward-better-mental-health-for-young-australians\/","title":{"rendered":"Steps toward better mental health for young Australians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian Government is ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of young people remains a priority during a challenging time.<br \/>\nToday marks National headspace Day \u2013 an initiative aimed at helping youth take small steps every day to improve their mental health.<br \/>\nMinister for Health, Greg Hunt and Minister for Youth and Sport, Richard Colbeck, encouraged young people to take time out for themselves.<br \/>\n\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the lives of young people across Australia,\u201d Minister Hunt said.<br \/>\n\u201cWhether you are struggling to focus on study, have lost a job or finding it difficult to connect with others &#8211; there are professional teams and services like headspace available to offer support.\u201d<br \/>\nThere are currently 124 headspace services in Australia and many are planning headspace Day events and celebrations.<br \/>\nSince 2006, headspace has provided more than 3.6 million services and supported more than 626,000 young Australians to strengthen their wellbeing and manage their mental health.<br \/>\nIn 2019\u201320 alone, headspace supported nearly 130,000 young people.<br \/>\nIn 2020\u201321, the Government is providing over $130 million to support headspace services across Australia, and has also committed to expand the headspace network to 153 services by 2022.<br \/>\nMinister Colbeck said every year one in four young Australians experienced mental health issues.<br \/>\n\u201cMore than ever many young people are facing family or relationship conflict, a disconnection from study and work, financial stress and social isolation,\u201d he said.<br \/>\n\u201cDuring times like these, focusing on the everyday things that support a young person\u2019s wellbeing helping them form healthy habits, develop resilience and manage stress or anxiety.<br \/>\nMinister Colbeck said the Government was also committed to ensuring the mental health of young people is maintained through provisions from the 2020-21 Budget.<br \/>\n\u201cThe Australian Government has invested an unprecedented $5.7 billion in mental health support in 2020-21 alone,\u201d Minister Colbeck said.<br \/>\nThe support builds on the ongoing work to develop a whole-of-government National Youth Policy Framework to inform how policies and programs support young Australians and improve their lives.<br \/>\nFor more information on the headspace Day and how to be involved, along with digital wellbeing kits, visit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/headspace.org.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.headspace.org.au<\/a>.<br \/>\nFollow headspace on social media and share your favourite tip using #headspacetips and #headspaceday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian Government is ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of young people remains a priority during a challenging time. Today marks National headspace Day \u2013 an initiative aimed at helping youth take small steps every day to improve their mental health. Minister for Health, Greg Hunt and Minister for Youth and Sport, Richard Colbeck, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/10\/21\/steps-toward-better-mental-health-for-young-australians\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Steps toward better mental health for young Australians&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}