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

4. Outcomes of headspace Clients
Notes: SOFAS is generally reported by the service provider at each occasion of service. The data is right censored and
some headspace clients may have had further treatment than what has been able to be observed within the data. Smaller
numbers of clients are observed as the number of occasions of service increases. Cell sizes for these data can be found
in Appendix F.
Source: Authors calculations from hCSA data.
4.2 How do the outcomes of young people using headspace services differ from the
outcomes of young people not using headspace services?
Changes in young people’s mental health, physical health, drug and alcohol use and social inclusion
were assessed using data collected from the young peoples’ surveys. Survey data was collected
from a sample of headspace clients as well as two comparison groups: a sample of 12-17 year olds
who participated in the Young Minds Matter study and a sample of 18-25 year olds sourced through
a national online panel.
The analysis compares findings for three specific groups:
1. the ‘headspace treatment’ group: young people who received services from a headspace
centre
2. the ‘other treatment’ group: young people who reported receiving mental health services, but
said these were not from a headspace service
3. the ‘no treatment’ group: young people who reported receiving no mental health services
from either headspace or another service.
The ‘headspace treatment’ group was recruited from headspace centres over a 6-month period:
between 6 December 2013 to 6 June 2014. The ‘no treatment group’ was drawn from the comparison
surveys and comprises of young people who have not sought any substantial headspace treatment
and who also did not seek any treatment from any other health professionals between the two survey
waves. The ‘other treatment’ group comprises of young people within the comparison surveys and
includes all those who sought mental health support from a health professional other than headspace
between Waves 1 and 2. The results presented below, first compare the ‘headspace treatment’ with
the ‘no treatment’ group, and then the ‘headspace treatment’ with the ‘other treatment’ group.
Changes in various outcomes are compared over the two survey waves. Those who only responded
to one wave were excluded from the analysis. Further, during preliminary analysis, steps were taken
to match the headspace survey intervention group to administrative data (hCSA) in order to assess
the timing of the survey collection against the period of treatment at a headspace centre. This
process uncovered 340 observations (32.3%) of young people who had completed their headspace
treatment prior to the wave 1 collection data. These observations were excluded from the analysis.
Finally, young people within the comparison surveys that sought a substantive headspace treatment
between Wave 1 and Wave 2 were also excluded from the analysis (n=90).
Propensity Score Matching
A complexity of the DID methodology stems from the fact that those in the ‘headspace treatment’
group are often dissimilar in their observed and unobserved characteristics when compared to other
young people within the comparison surveys. In order to mitigate these differences, a propensity
score matching technique was applied to the datasets. It is, however, important to note the limitations
of this technique, especially in accounting for unobserved differences between the groups.
Results – headspace treatment compared with no treatment
This section reports the changes in a number of outcomes between the two survey waves for
the matched ‘headspace treatment’ and ‘no treatment’ groups. Changes between waves 1 and 2,
including effect size and difference-in-differences of those treated at headspace and those without
treatment, are reported. The statistical reliability of these changes is also assessed given that the
data operationalised is a survey sample.
Social Policy Research Centre 2015
headspace Evaluation Final Report
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