p>The Federal Member for Ballarat, Catherine King, today said the announcement of a location for the region’s new Federally-funded headspace centre was great news for the community and particularly its young people.
Ms King was commenting at the announcement that a location at 28 Camp St, Ballarat, would be the new headspace Centre for the city and region.
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The Federal Member for Ballarat, Catherine King, today said the announcement of a location for the region’s new Federally-funded headspace centre was great news for the community and particularly its young people.
Ms King was commenting at the announcement that a location at 28 Camp St, Ballarat, would be the new headspace Centre for the city and region.
She said she was especially pleased that the location was at the centre of a real youth hub in Ballarat with the University of Ballarat fine arts faculty and the Ballarat Learning Exchange in the immediate vicinity.
Ms King congratulated all involved with bringing the headspace project to its latest milestone.
“The 2011-12 Gillard Government Budget allocated an additional $197.3 million over 5 years to establish new youth focused mental health services through the headspace program and to provide additional funding to existing centres,” Ms King said.
“When combined with existing investments, the total Government commitment to expanding headspace services over 5 years is $342m.
“This will see 90 sustainable headspace centres established across Australia by 2014-15 and it is fantastic that one of those is now establishing in this region.”
Once all 90 sites are established, headspace will help up to 72,000 young people each year.
“The spread of sites across states is based on youth population, but the Government has also been determined to ensure there is a mix of urban, regional and rural sites,” Ms King said.
“On the whole, the new site should be seen as new ‘service platform’, drawing together existing service capacity, whilst also creating additional capacity through the utilisation of Federal Government funds.
“In some circumstances sites may be chosen because of proximity to existing services experiencing high demand through a ‘satellite’ model.”
Ms King congratulated the lead agency, Grampians Medicare Local, for bringing the formation of the new headspace to this important stage.
“I know there has been a lot of hard work carried out behind the scenes and it has not all been easy, but the outcome is the important thing and this is a great result for our regional communities.”