The Minns Labor Government will boost frontline mental healthcare across NSW with more than $64 million to recruit an additional 29 clinicians plus more funding for community-based care targeting young people and regional communities.
The four-year investment is part of a record $3.1 billion commitment to mental health, with a greater focus on community based mental health care programs.
There is strong evidence to support the need for greater investment in programs that help people with mental health challenges to live independently in the community.
Recruits across Sydney, Western Sydney, Murrumbidgee and Hunter New England Local Health Districts are now joining a community mental health workforce that has grown nearly 8 per cent since June 2023.
It means there are now more than 1,670 boots on the ground to deliver practical mental health support outside the traditional hospital setting.
These include peer workers, clinical nurse consultants, psychologists and nurse practitioners, with fourteen of the new roles dedicated to supporting people in Western Sydney, including three peer workers.
Peer workers are a professional discipline of the mental health and suicide prevention workforce who draw upon their own experience of life-changing mental health challenges, suicidal distress and recovery, or their experiences as a family member or carer.
The investment is also supporting rural and regional community mental health workers for the Farmgate Support Program, a critical mental health program for farming communities that was left on a funding cliff by the former government.
It's all part of the Minns Labor Government's pledge to improve mental healthcare in New South Wales, including:
- Building a network of Medicare Mental Health Centres, where anyone can access free, walk- mental health support.
- Investing in Safe Havens, so that people who are experiencing mental distress or thoughts of suicide have somewhere to go other than an emergency department.
- Embedding suicide prevention into all government decision making¸ with our world-leading Suicide Prevention Act 2025.
- Investing in Community Living Programs, to support more than 1,900 people daily with severe mental health conditions to live independently in the community.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Mental Health Rose Jackson:
"Too many people have been left to fall through the gaps between hospital care and support in the community. That is where this investment makes a real difference.
"We are putting more clinicians on the ground so people can get help earlier, closer to home, and before they reach crisis point.
"Since we've been in government, the community mental health workforce has grown nearly 8 per cent - it's not job done but it's a step in the right direction.
"Peer workers in particular are an integral part of the NSW public mental health system, and these new roles will make a real difference in helping people navigate the system and get the help they need."
Quotes attributable to Mental Health Peer Worker Will Woods:
"As a peer worker, I use my own lived experience of mental health challenges and recovery to connect with people in a way that feels real and human. Sometimes what makes the biggest difference is simply sitting alongside someone and helping them feel understood.
"Peer workers bring hope into the system - we show that recovery is possible and support people to believe in themselves again, reconnect with their communities, and find their own way forward."
