The Youth Representative Program was grateful for the opportunity to provide a submission to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to inform the Office of the High Commissioner’s study on the impact of mental health challenges on the enjoyment of human rights by young people, to be presented at the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council in September 2026

We would like to recognise the following members for their contributions to this submission:

• Grace Harkins, 2026 Chief Youth Representation Officer
• Satara Uthayakumaran, 2025 Australian Youth Representative to the UN
• Janice Rodrigues, 2026 Australian Youth Representative to the UN

 

Input – Mental Health: A System Influenced by Wealth, Geography and Identity

In 2025, young people across Australia identified mental health as one of the top issues nationally and consistently described the mental health system as crisis-driven, fragmented and inequitable. Rather than prioritising prevention and early intervention, many are only able to receive care once distress has escalated to acute levels. This approach compounds harm and distress, undermining young people’s ability to fully enjoy their human rights. 

For young Australians, mental health care feels like a lottery, uncertain, inconsistent. While some young people are able to access a bulk-billing general practitioner (GP) or a counsellor who remains long enough to build trust, others wait years, experience discontinuity of care bounced between clinicians, or never receive care at all. Access depends heavily on income, geography, culture, disability, and age. Young people report that the system itself often compounds distress, forcing young people to navigate waitlists, referrals, and repeated retelling of trauma across multiple services. Young people are consistently calling for governments and leaders to provide affordable, continuous, culturally safe care that is available before a crisis point is reached.

 

Mental Health Care as Privilege

Young people across Australia consistently witness that access to mental health care is significantly shaped by financial means and often favours the financially affluent. While services exist, their availability, quality and affordability vary significantly, creating disparities in access and outcomes.

“During COVID, low‑income Australians experienced twice as much mental distress compared to wealthier individuals, yet were the least likely to receive support.” – 17 year old, Victoria

Young people describe the emergence of a de facto two-tier system where some can afford to access private care, low-income young people rely on overstretched public systems or forego care entirely. In metropolitan areas such as Melbourne, Victoria, young people voiced that therapy costs between $150-$200 per session are often unaffordable, prohibitive by pricing out low-income youth, resulting in fragmented, “stop -start” care. Long waitlists and high private costs further exacerbate these inequities, forcing families to choose between paying for mental health care or going without, placing care out of reach for students, casual workers, and low-income families.

 

Regional and Remote Mental Health Deserts

In regional and remote areas, mental health care is undermined by geography. Distance, workforce shortages and limited infrastructure combine to create what many young people describe as “mental health deserts.” These are areas where services exist but are functionally inaccessible. 

Young people reported that specialist mental health services are concentrated in major cities, requiring travel of several hours or even hundreds of kilometres – a journey that adds cost, time, and stress to already vulnerable situations. In regional areas such as Port Augusta, South Australia, young people described living in a mental health ‘desert’ with only one clinician available, leaving appointments rationed until a crisis occurs. Regional hospitals lack capacity for mental health care, forcing costly travel, which many, this is a barrier too high to overcome. In regional areas such as Orange, New South Wales, youths were sent hours away for appointments, leading some to give up entirely. In Mount Isa and Wujal Wuja in Queensland, young people voiced that psychology sessions cost $150–$500, with trauma care delivered on a fly-in/fly-out basis, and resulting in continuity of care being virtually nonexistent.

Young Aboriginal people from Munindi, Queensland, shared the compounded impact of distance paid for long-travel buses just to see a mental health professional. In border and remote communities, like Munindi, young people reported paying for long-distance bus travel to access services, only to return untreated due to travel costs. 

While services such as Headspaces across Australia provide valuable youth-friendly programming, transport barriers continue to limit equitable access. Geographic transport barriers and cultural stigma further restrict access, particularly for young people in outer suburbs and regional areas.

Young people demonstrate that there is difficulty in supporting mental health due to institutions being understaffed, leaving communities helpless. Across Australia, Headspace and other mental health supports are severely under-resourced, with high staff turnover and limited availability. Headspace Tamworth services over 900 young people per year, despite limited staffing. Outposts in smaller towns like Narrabri and Gunnedah technically only receive one day of service per week, but are forced to open  5 days to meet demand.

“If we can’t stay long enough in a community, it just feels like another broken promise.” – 26 year old youth worker, Katherine, Northern Territory

Lack of adequate physical and social infrastructure in regional areas, making it difficult for children and youth accessing education and health care. There is a serious shortage of counselling and mental health care services available in schools. Youth infrastructure is treated as optional. The lack of neutral or ‘third spaces’ are aggravating mental health issues among young people. 

 

Cultural Safety and Identity-Based Exclusion

Young people witness that mental health is exclusive and not inclusive. 

“The system is working exactly how it was designed - to exclude.” – 18 year old female, Midlands, Tasmania

Most youth mental health responses rely on a white, clinical model that doesn’t recognise cultural, gendered, or linguistic contexts. Organisations like Children’s Ground and Melaleuca Australia stress the importance of two-way therapeutic models that blend community knowledge with professional care.

First Nations young people described particularly acute impacts. For youths already carrying intergenerational trauma, the revolving door approach deepens mistrust and hopelessness. Young people witness that, aboriginal controlled partnerships provide culturally safe care, but border policies prevent out of state clients from accessing services, leaving them disconnected from culturally safe programs and no critical support. For youths in remote areas, such as Cape York and the Torres Strait in Far North Queensland, flights to specialist sessions are often unaffordable, leaving them without care. Therefore, younger Australians are not asking for a premium service but instead, one that doesn’t jeopardise their mental health because of distance and proximity. 

“For remote First Nations communities, this meant untreated trauma, grief, and intergenerational mental ill-health, with no services close enough to provide continuity.” - 16 year old male

Some facilities remain severely understaffed, leaving communities unsupported. Workforce shortages, including a lack of male clinicians in some communities, further limits the necessary culturally appropriate care. 

Identity-based exclusion also affects culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD), migrant and international students. International students who are excluded from Medicare often self-diagnose online due to the high costs of seeing a professional doctor or healthcare profession and young people explained that the financial burden of care creates stress, guilt and shame. Despite being highly vulnerable, international students are frequently excluded from territory services. The result is reliance on informal peer networks for support, which are uneven and unreliable. 

Culturally and linguistically diverse, First Nations, and disabled youth experience further exclusion due to stigma and the absence of culturally safe or intersectional models of care. Their overlapping needs fall through the cracks of siloed systems. In Western Sydney, New South Wales, young people highlight how racism and class discrimination compound mental health distress. Culturally and linguistically diverse youth often face deep stigma within their communities around mental health, discouraging them from seeking formal support. In regional and CALD communities, stigma around mental health is particularly strong. 

 

Economic Pressures and Social Determinants

Young people share that economic insecurity is a driver of deteriorating mental health in Australia. Both mental and physical health is suffering with youth unable to juggle bills, food, and education. Cost-of-living pressures compound distress and restrict access to care.

Housing instability emerged as a particularly acute concern. Young people explain that, in line with unsustainable rent and short-term leases create constant uncertainty, with many young people in Australia experiencing homelessness or couch surfing. In addition, prepaid utility systems were described as causing cascading risks: fridges stop, medications spoil, and devices for legal compliance fail to charge. Additionally, the inability to afford the cost of living, leading to homelessness, creates issues for youth regarding access to food and showers. Widespread exploitation at work means that skipped meals, unsafe cash-in-hand work, and harassment in trades or hospitality is highly prevalent. These low wages and exhausted students result in poor mental health, exploitation, and deferred education. These disruptions create risks to both young people’s physical and mental health.

Financial pressures also generate harmful trade-offs. Young people reported delaying physical health care, including prescriptions or diagnostic testing, in order to prioritise and afford mental health care. Mental health care should not be contingent upon wealth, nor should young people be forced to choose between their physical and mental health.

 

Crisis-Driven and Fragmented Care

Young people consistently emphasised that mental health systems are oriented toward crisis response rather than prevention, with limited support available in the “middle space” between acute care and long-term management. Early intervention services are limited, and ongoing care pathways are frequently disrupted, resulting in delayed treatment until distress escalates to a crisis point.

Young people described the mental health system as fragmented and difficult to navigate, with no central access point and limited transparency about referral pathways. Concerns were also raised regarding parental consent requirements restricting autonomous access to care for some young people and insufficient structural support for general practitioners working with youth. 

With high demand and workforce shortages, youth mental health services are frequently overwhelmed, leading to service rationing, shortened appointments and limited follow-up capacity.

Hospital-based responses were described as particularly distressing. Emergency departments, both metropolitan and regional, are frequently ill-equipped to handle mental health crises and provide trauma-informed mental health care. In very frank language, young people consulted at Wayside Chapel, New South Wales, expressed strong dissatisfaction with mental health services in hospital-based responses, describing experiences in hospitals that sedate rather than treat and release young people without follow-up. In Murray Bridge, South Australia, young people described being “criminalised, not cared for” when presenting in acute distress, highlighting a culture of containment rather than support.

Young people report repeated administrative barriers resulting from fragmented systems. Records are not consistently shared across services or jurisdictions, requiring young people to restart assessment and referral processes multiple times. Youths are often shuffled, requiring them to retell their trauma, retraumatising them. Due to being moved around, there is often a need to restart procedures as systems rarely converse and share information. In being moved around multiple clinics and waitlists, they are often retraumatised and can’t find the solution necessary. 

“I can only keep laying myself bare to everyone, for so long. I’m so tired.” 18 year old, Adelaide

 

Recommendations

Young people across Australia consistently emphasise that the mental health care system requires structural reform rather than isolated program expansion. Addressing the mental health challenges facing young people requires a rights-based approach that prioritises equity, prevention, cultural safety and sustained public investment. Mental health services must shift from crisis-driven response toward prevention and early intervention.

Economic status should not be key to determining young people’s access to essential care. Reducing out-of-pocket costs, strengthening public funding models and improving continuity of care are critical. 

Particular attention must be drawn to rural and remote communities by strengthening stable workforce models, improving transportation accessibility, and expanding youth-specific hub and telehealth services without replacing in-person continuity of care. 

Culturally safe and community-led models must be adequately resourced, embedded and supported, including Aboriginal Community Controlled services, on Country healing initiatives and multilingual, disability-inclusive and LGBTQ+ affirming supports. Co-design with young people should be standard practice rather than exceptional.

States should also recognise and address the broader social determinants impacting youth mental health by integrating housing stability, food security, transportation and education into the mental health policy conversation and planning

Ensuring that services are universal, accessible, and affordable for all young people is central to preventing mental health care from being determined by wealth, geography or identity.

 

 

Uthayakumaran, S. (2025). Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations Program: 2025 Report. Melbourne, Victoria: UN Youth Australia. https://unyouth.org.au/explore-the-youth-representative-report/