Lifeline Australia receives mental health funding boost
The Australian Government’s new $1.9 billion mental health package will enable Lifeline Australia to help more people in crisis, following the commitment of $18 million over five years to expand Lifeline’s national telephone counselling service.
This is the first funding made available under the Australian Government’s $56.9 million measure for telephone counselling, self help and web-based support.
Lifeline provides around-the-clock telephone counselling services from about 60 call-centres throughout Australia, fielding more than 500,000 calls each year from people in need of support or advice.
The new funding to Lifeline to expand its telephone counselling service will assist it to better respond to calls from people in need – particularly those at risk of suicide.
Lifeline will use the new funding to undertake improvements that include providing 25 extra telephone counselling seats across five centres throughout Australia, and acquiring the necessary information technology and telephony infrastructure to increase access to their national 13 11 14 phone counselling service.
The funding will also support the development of a national referral database for mental health services, and allow for additional supervision of Lifeline telephone counsellors to improve the quality of service for mental health callers.
