THE Department of Health and Ageing has awarded SANE Australia $27.3 million over three years for the national roll out of Australia's first digital psychosocial recovery program for adults experiencing complex mental illness and trauma.
The first of its kind in the world, the program represents "an enormous step forward" when it comes to the accessibility of mental health and disability support services, promising to improve mental health outcomes and alleviate pressure on the primary health system.
SANE's programs offer 1:1 personalised counselling, groups sessions, peer support and 24/7 community connection for free via any internet-enabled device.
They offer similar outcomes to traditional services, but cost less to deliver and have other benefits, including reducing geographical and cultural barriers for those seeking help.
As well as supporting those with complex mental health needs and their families and carers, SANE also provides mental health support to people with intellectual disability, autism or acquired brain injury.
"There's around five million Australians living with complex mental health needs and at least 500,000 missing out on support services that could dramatically change the trajectory of their life," said SANE CEO Rachel Green.
"The need to find new ways of supporting this community has never been greater, and there's strong evidence that digital mental health support services are just as effective as face-to-face services, more economical and rapidly scalable to overcome geographic or workforce challenges," Green said.
SANE developed and piloted a guided recovery program for those with complex needs in collaboration with the lived experience community.
"Our services have now grown to encompass a stepped digital support offering, proven by independent evaluation to reduce symptom domination, improve quality of life, and importantly, empower individuals to have the knowledge, skills and confidence to build their own recovery journey," Green said.
"This historic investment in making our free services available nationally is testament to the willingness of this government to explore new mental health support pathways and actively reverse the inequality in service access that this community has experienced for so long," Green concluded.
SANE's support services are delivered by specialist mental health workers and are accessible via any internet-enabled device, or by telephone for those without internet access.
The program is currently available in most parts of Australia and will be made nationally available from Jul 2025.
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