Jeremy Rockliff,Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing
The Tasmanian Liberal Government is absolutely committed to providing quality treatment and care to people who need it, including young people.
That’s why my Government has committed $45.2 million to fully fund Phases One and Two of our response to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Review Report and recommendations.
The reforms that are being delivered are extensive and include changes to the CAMHS structure, practice and culture, as well as the development of new and innovative specialist services designed to address known service gaps, with a particular focus on our most vulnerable young people with complex and severe mental health needs.
New models of care will enable CAMHS to realign services so they can build stronger partnerships and linkages with other services and Government agencies.
As part of our reforms, we are introducing Multisystemic Therapy (MST) to support children whose severe antisocial behaviour puts them at risk of consequences such as disengagement from school and/or entry into the youth justice system.
MST provides intense practical support to help young people and their families and caregivers achieve goals that they have identified as important, such as engagement in learning.
MST provides young people and their families and caregivers three to five months of care with access to a therapist seven days a week.
There is strong evidence that demonstrates MST is a therapy that results in positive outcomes and has very strong parent and stakeholder support where it has been successfully introduced, including in New Zealand and Western Australia for many years.
CAMHS will be working with a wide group of stakeholders around the implementation of this exciting new program in Tasmania.
It is anticipated that the initial stages of MST will be established in Tasmania by the end of 2022.
