VMHPAA RESPONSE TO “NOWHERE TO TURN” MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS STORY

Shane Warren
Jun 29
2 min read

PUBLIC RESPONSE

POSITION STATEMENT

29 June 2025

The Vocational Mental Health Practitioners Association Australia (VMHPAA) fully endorses The Australian Women’s Weekly exposé Nowhere to Turn: Inside Australia’s Mental Health Crisis, which underscores a mental health system at breaking point - overwhelmed, under-resourced, and fragmented.

Article Reference: https://www.womensweekly.com.au/health/nowhere-to-turn-inside-australias-mental-health-crisis/

We stand with the article's experts such as Dr Ashwini Padhi, Georgie Harman, Dr Mark Cross and others, who describe a system "buckling" under demand and with families whose loved ones were failed. VMHPAA supports their call for new models of care, VMHPAA further adds that who delivers that care is as critical as how it’s funded.

“We urgently need a 'wider church' of mental health professionals - lived experience workers, peer support practitioners, vocationally trained counsellors, social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists - although holding different levels of training but all recognised as equally essential,” said Shane Warren, Chair of VMHPAA. “This is how supply becomes strength and what now looks like fragmentation becomes a coordinated approach.”

This perspective draws on wisdom from the Royal Commission, which warns against "over-reliance on bed-based care" and calls for community and lived-experience-led responses. VMHPAA echoes these experts and urges an inclusive, collaborative workforce strategy to match the complexity of need.

“As the article highlights, thousands of Australians are enduring long waits or no help at all,” said Susan Sandy, Secretary of VMHPAA. “Our vocational practitioners are grounded in local communities capable of delivering timely, culturally safe, trauma-informed care that prevents avoidable breakdowns.”

With the Productivity Commission’s recent review of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement confirming what many of us working in the community already know all too well: the agreement, while well-intentioned, has failed to deliver real outcomes for the people it was meant to support.

“VMHPAA fully endorses the various report’s growing demand for systemic overhaul,” affirmed Philip Armstrong, CEO. “But we must not omit the people already doing this work from the workforce plan. They are not just capable, they are essential.”

VMHPAA CALLS FOR:

National recognition of vocationally trained and lived-experience practitioners as fundamental to mental healthcare workforce.
Investment in multidisciplinary teams delivering mental health support in schools, community hubs, and regional centres.
A coordinated national workforce strategy that actively integrates these practitioners alongside clinical roles.