Is headspace making a difference to young people’s lives?

Executive Summary
through mental health issues among headspace clients that improved clinically, from 9.4 days per
month at presentation to headspace on average down to 3.1 at the final observed visit.
Responses to the number of headspace treatments varied by both age and gender. Young females
entered headspace with a higher level of psychological distress than males, and typically received
more occasions of service over a longer period of time. Females 23 years and over showed a high
level of clinically and reliably significant improvement over time: the combined rates of clinical and
reliable improvements rose from 16% by the third visit to nearly 29% by the tenth visit. The trajectory
of clinically and reliably significant improvement in psychological distress was relatively flat for
males by age, but the rate of clinical improvement in mental health functioning also increased as the
number of headspace visits rose.
Young people who only had 2-3 occasions of service were over-represented in the group who did
not experience any change or had an insignificant change. This finding is not surprising as the
initial occasion of service is generally an intake assessment rather than treatment and so this group
of young people would have received a very low dose intervention. Young people who had 7-10
occasions of service were highly represented among those who had clinically significant reductions
in psychological distress, while young people with 10 or more occasions of service were overrepresented
in terms of their reliably and clinically significant reductions in psychological distress.
Evaluation findings show a small positive improvement in outcomes for young people that sought
headspace services relative to similar young people and a functional population. Specifically,
the ‘headspace treatment’ group recorded a greater reduction in psychological distress when
compared with both the ‘other treatment’ and ‘no treatment’ matched groups over time. Both results
are statistically significant. The effect size for this outcome indicator is -0.11 for the difference-indifferences
between the ‘headspace treatment’ and ‘no treatment’ group. Comparisons between the
‘headspace treatment’ and ‘other treatment’ group show an effect size of -0.16.
Service Delivery Model
The headspace delivery service model ensures that young people with a range of problems can
access different practitioner types in the one location. There is a low rate of formal referrals to other
services for headspace clients. Informal referrals to other services are not recorded in the hCSA;
however, other qualitative data indicates that young people frequently receive informal referrals.
There is variability in the connections centres have with local services, with some working effectively
with local providers and tensions being evident in others.
The evaluation indicates that one of the best ways that the service model could be enhanced to
better meet the needs of young people and their parents and carers is to increase the capacity
of centres to provide family therapy for some young people. The majority of staff interviewed
and managers surveyed (n=22/29) identified family-based treatment as the main service gap.
The increased provision of outreach services was the second most clearly identified strategy for
enhancing headspace services.
eheadspace was used by about 30% of clients that had accessed headspace services. eheadspace
was viewed by staff working within centres as an effective additional component of headspace that
can provide young people with information about headspace including what to expect at centres.
Some staff commented on the value of eheadspace in holding young people steady while they were
waiting to access services; however, assessing the effectiveness of eheadspace was beyond the
scope of the evaluation.
The evaluation produced mixed results about the role of headspace National Office. The
overwhelming majority of centre managers (n=23/29) rated hNO as useful or very useful to the
work of their centre; however, open-ended survey data indicates that some tensions exist around
perceptions of the centralisation of control by hNO.
Workforce issues present a challenge for many centres and impact on the provision of seamless
service provision. Almost half of the centre managers surveyed (n=14/29) stated that they were
operating with a staffing vacancy. In particular, there was an identified need to expand the amount of
time that GPs operated in centres as well as the range of GP services offered.
Finally, the evaluation indicates that headspace has been relatively effective in building brand
Social Policy Research Centre 2015
headspace Evaluation Final Report
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