Reimagining the Mental Health System to Meet Real Need – Not Just Measured Metrics

Shane Warren
Jun 18
2 min read

PUBLIC RESPONSE

For Immediate Release

18 June 2025

Reimagining the Mental Health System to Meet Real Need – Not Just Measured Metrics

In his powerful piece published June 17, 2025, Professor Pat McGorry laid bare a painful truth that so many in the sector already feel deep in their bones: our mental health system is failing to deliver for those who need it most, while inadvertently misallocating resources to those who may need something different or less intensive.

At the Vocational Mental Health Practitioners Association of Australia (VMHPAA), we stand in full support of the urgent call for truth-telling, reform, and renewed commitment to equity across the entire continuum of mental health care.

Professor McGorry’s concept of “unmet need and met unneed” echoes what our vocationally trained practitioners see every day. People with severe and enduring mental illness, often isolated, impoverished, and excluded, are slipping through gaping cracks. Meanwhile, families in distress, especially those without financial means, are forced into months-long waitlists, ED corridors, or disengagement altogether.

We agree: a new system must be built and it must be built with all hands on deck.

The Role of Vocationally Trained Practitioners in Rebuilding the System

This awareness moment must drive not only investment in beds and clinical pathways, but in the broad community ecosystem that supports prevention, early intervention, and psychosocial support. This is where vocationally trained counsellors, mental health workers, community rehabilitation professionals, and lived-experience peers provide unparalleled value.

Our members operate at the critical intersection of clinical care and community, often catching individuals too “well” for hospitalisation but too “unwell” for primary care to hold. This “missing middle” has long been our everyday work.

Their skills are not theoretical. They are trauma-informed, recovery-oriented, community-embedded, and governed by rigorous professional standards. And they are scalable.

To echo Professor McGorry: Australia must rebuild a system that supports the most severely mentally ill with dignity, competence, and equity at its core. That cannot happen without a workforce model that integrates salaried, multidisciplinary teams, strong psychosocial supports, and properly funded, outcome-driven service delivery.

Let’s take inspiration from Zimbabwe’s Friendship Bench. Let’s fund supported housing and not just prescribe discharge plans. Let’s train grandmothers and peer mentors alongside psychiatrists and social workers. Let’s stop managing risk and start managing recovery.

Let’s also stop debating who gets to belong in the system and start asking what the system needs to truly deliver.

A Call to Action

We call on all governments, state, territory, and federal to:

Recognise the value of vocationally trained mental health professionals as part of a multidisciplinary solution;
Restore early intervention and community-based care as a public health priority;
Rebalance funding toward salaried, team-based models of support;
Build equity back into the system through community-informed co-design, supported housing, and psychosocial rehabilitation;
End postcode-based exclusion and economic gatekeeping from essential mental health supports.