More than 45 people from Wimmera service providers attended the Wimmera and Southern Mallee Mental Health Service Mapping Project’s forum on Thursday to strengthen the region’s health service network and learn more about headspace Horsham.

Project officer Jo Ritchie said the forum focused on ensuring providers knew how to direct residents to the right places and pathways for support.

She said headspace Horsham would benefit the region by providing a single centre for youth-focused services.

“It means different types of services will be based from the centre, whether drug and alcohol issues or mental health. They can all be the same place,” she said. 

“At the moment, people who can help and support youth are in very different places and services and people can have difficulty knowing how to get access to them.” 

The forum focused on ensuring pathways to good mental health were easy to find. 

Ms Ritchie said it was important services shared information.

“There’s so much around in terms of services. No one person can find out it all,” she said.

“There was a focus on service providers needing to know what’s happening to have the capacity to give good information to people their working with.”

Ms Ritchie said National Disability Services’ David Moody told the room the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme would provide more autonomy for some patients with mental illness or psychosocial disability.

She said it would especially benefit those living outside Horsham. 

“At the moment, money goes to service or organisations that are often in Horsham and they decide how to service people at somewhere like Nhill or Hopetoun,” she said.

“Under the NDIS, someone in Nhill or Hopetoun would have more control on how support is delivered.”