The social and economic cost of youth mental ill-health in Australia is a burning issue that will persist unless we urgently and actively change the way the system interacts with young people and their families.

The recent heartbreaking account published in The Age (20 May) (“Broken mental health system failed my son. If we don’t fix this, other young lives will be lost.”) detailing a parent’s loss of their child to mental illness illuminates why we need to completely rethink how we approach mental health service delivery. Although this sounds huge and complex – it is possible to create widespread change.

The recent pledge by Labor of $1 billion to expand affordable services, including Medicare-funded centres, more headspace clinics and new youth specialised mental health hubs is welcomed. The opportunity now exists to learn from the past, so that we don’t recreate the same issues or magnify them. Not investing in significant innovation would be a missed opportunity.

Recent reviews and reports into our failing mental health system point to the need for system-wide change. We cannot continue to focus our investment on traditional mental health models, that often isolate young people from their support groups during stressful life events, when the evidence is getting stronger for community-based approaches.

Community-based approaches to mental health and well-being have shown remarkable success. One such approach is Open Dialogue, developed in Finland in the 1980s to organise and plan mental healthcare in the community, as referenced by the World Health Organisation and the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

Community-based approaches show how it is possible to re-organise mental health services as well as empower young people to activate support in their community.

What makes these approaches powerful is their recognition that mental health crises emerge within social contexts – where young people are grappling with life challenges like staying in education, finding a job, building positive relationships, addressing financial hardship or coping with experiences of complex trauma and homelessness.

It’s therefore not surprising that interest in community-based mental healthcare is intensifying in Australia and around the world. There is a growing body of evidence to support mental health approaches, where young people connect with a trusted group of family, friends, peers and professionals in their community, ensuring they have support wherever they are.

This collaborative approach also leads to a shift for mental health services – from crisis-focused care to preventive, holistic support that brings together all the resources available in a community. This way of working can strengthen the mental health workforce by improving job satisfaction and well-being – meaning retention (particularly in regional and remote areas) is easier.

In Australia, regionally-based mental health services are starting to change their practices by demonstrating their interest in working more closely with young people’s families and friends. They know they need to empower young people to build connections with those they trust, and this includes health and well-being professionals throughout their recovery journey. Having access to a network of support makes young people’s experience less isolating, frightening and fragmented.

Here are three concrete ways we can change things for the better.

Create mental health and well-being teams who are co-ordinated and collaborative

We need to establish local teams trained in community-based approaches who can respond to crises quickly and support young people wherever they may be. When someone reaches out for help, they shouldn’t have to navigate complex referral pathways or wait weeks for an appointment. They should not have to repeat their story dozens of times.

Initial investment in training up local teams would be offset by reduced hospitalisation costs and improved long-term outcomes for young people and their families.

Enable the shift from crisis-focused individualised care to communities of support for young people

Our existing mental health workforce is stretched and under strain. It is trained primarily in individualistic approaches to treatment, with limited preparation for working with families and collaboratively with other services. We need to bring together mental health, allied health, youth and other community services regularly to support young people with a co-ordinated, compassionate and timely response, before the crisis hits. This would also reduce stigma and shame and elevate the voice of young people.

Create opportunities for governments, community services and philanthropists to work together

The change we need to see in mental health will not happen without active input from different sectors. Mental health services find it challenging to innovate when they are in crisis. With support from philanthropy, it is possible to build alternative ways of working in mental health, with strong evidence bases that can be shared so that we can adapt locally-led approaches to suit different places.

Community-based, network-centred approaches offer a path forward that honours the clarion call for a more humane, responsive mental health system. The cost of inaction is measured in lives lost, a declining workforce and potential unfulfilled.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.