Critical shortages in the community mental health workforce are the result of systemic policy neglect, and require urgent action from governments at all levels, according to Chloe Jesson, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Queensland Alliance for Mental Health.
Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler and Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Emma McBride MP now have an important opportunity to lead a national approach that truly values community-based mental healthcare, says Jesson.
“Workforce shortages are not inevitable,” she writes. “They are the outcome of policy choices; it is time we made different ones.”
Chloe Jesson writes:
Right now, across Australia, frontline community mental health services are struggling to recruit and retain staff. This is not due to a sudden lack of interest in the work.
It is because the conditions have been allowed to deteriorate over years of systemic neglect. Contracts are short, wages are low, and organisations are under constant pressure to do more with less.
These workforce shortages are not just operational challenges; they are policy failures.
Successive reforms have struggled to fully integrate community mental health into the broader system. While hospital-based services continue to receive political attention and investment, community-led supports remain under-resourced and sidelined in major reforms.
The result is a workforce that is fraying. Services cannot offer job security or competitive pay. Peer workers are not always embedded in roles that reflect their expertise, regional and culturally diverse workforces are expected to stretch themselves thin across vast gaps.
These are not teething problems. They are the predictable outcomes of a system that has never been designed to prioritise care in community.
If we want to build a mental health system that works for people, then we need to stop treating community mental health as an afterthought.
The workforce challenges we face today are symptoms. The underlying condition is neglect, and it is long past time we treated the cause.
An important workforce
Community-based services delivered by non-government organisations support people across the full continuum of mental health need. They walk alongside individuals experiencing distress, crisis, and recovery, as well as those seeking to stay connected, housed, and well in the long term.
These services are delivered in homes, neighbourhoods, outreach settings, and community spaces. The work is relational, place-based, and grounded in trust. It is carried out by multidisciplinary teams who are embedded in the communities they serve. Many bring lived and living experience of the very issues they are supporting others to navigate.
The workforce is diverse, skilled, and deeply committed. But the policy and funding settings that surround them often don’t reflect this value. Peer workers remain under-utilised, not due to a lack of commitment from services, but because roles are often poorly funded or narrowly designed.
Cultural safety is expected but rarely embedded through resourced, systemic action. Leadership potential exists across the sector, yet clear and supported pathways remain limited for many, especially those with lived experience.
Sector built on unstable ground
Funding arrangements continue to undermine workforce sustainability. Nationally, most workers in the sector are employed under the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services (SCHADS) Award, which has long lagged behind health sector equivalents.
Proposed changes to address this undervaluation are promising. But unless governments commit to fully funding any wage increases, community mental health organisations will be forced to choose between paying their staff fairly or cutting services.
Short-term contracts remain the norm. Organisations are constantly cycling through tenders, pilots, and short-duration programs.
This makes it impossible to offer job security, plan for growth, or invest in workforce development. The result is a system where burnout is common, and retention is a growing crisis.
While acute and clinical services are essential and must be sustained, they cannot meet the full spectrum of mental health need on their own.
As highlighted in the Analysis of Unmet Need for Psychosocial Support, there remains a significant “missing middle”, people who are not unwell enough for hospital care but who cannot stay well without the right support in community.
This unmet need is not a call to shift resources away from clinical care, but a call to invest in the services that complement it: psychosocial supports that help people stay housed, connected, and well.
Caught between governments
A further challenge lies in the unclear divide between Commonwealth and state responsibilities.
States frequently treat community mental health as the responsibility of the Commonwealth, particularly where the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is involved.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth often funds short-term, siloed programs that rarely integrate with broader state-based services or reforms. The result is a fragmented system, with providers expected to navigate conflicting priorities, disconnected funding streams, and limited coordination.
While both levels of government are making efforts to strengthen mental health supports more broadly, unclear responsibilities continue to affect service delivery.
Community organisations are left to pick up the slack. Staff are expected to deliver wraparound support in an environment where program boundaries are rigid, funding is conditional, and systemic advocacy is often ignored.
This lack of alignment is more than inefficient; it leaves people unsupported, and workers overwhelmed.
Investment alone is not enough
Some jurisdictions have recognised the growing risk. In Queensland, a Community Mental Health Workforce Strategy has been developed in partnership with the sector. It sets out a roadmap for recruitment, development, and retention.
But strategy documents alone are not enough. They must be backed by funding, policy reform, and structural change at both state and national levels.
The Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Mental Health in 2020 also pointed to the imbalance in mental health investment. Five years on and acute bed-based services continue to absorb most of the funding, while community services remain under-resourced, under-recognised, and under pressure.
To address the root causes of workforce shortages, both Commonwealth and state and territory governments must take coordinated action.
This includes:
- Recognising the critical contribution of non-government community mental health organisations within national mental health reform agendas
- Clarifying and aligning responsibilities between state and federal systems
- Investing in national data systems that capture the full workforce, including the peer workforce, who are not currently visible in mainstream datasets
- Providing additional funding for their commissioned services to meet SCHADS Award wage increases, rather than requiring community-managed organisations to absorb the costs within existing contracts.
- Offering longer-term contracts that support staff retention and workforce planning
- Embedding supervision, mentoring, and leadership development in program design and funding
- Co-designing solutions with the sector and those with lived and living experience.
National leadership needed
There is a critical opportunity now for the Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Ageing, and the Hon Emma McBride MP, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, to lead a national approach that truly includes community-based mental health.
Their leadership, alongside their state government counterparts, will be essential in ensuring this part of the system is not only recognised but also resourced to thrive.
The community mental health workforce plays a vital, complementary role to clinical services, often working in partnership to support recovery, connection, and wellbeing beyond the hospital walls. Our work is preventative, relational, person-centred, and often transformative.
But it is also under-resourced and stretched thin. We cannot afford to keep losing these workers.
And we cannot expect them to stay if we continue to ignore the structural problems they face.
Workforce shortages are not inevitable. They are the outcome of policy choices; it is time we made different ones.
• Chloe Jesson is Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Queensland Alliance for Mental Health, which represents more than 100 organisations and individual members involved in delivering community mental health and wellbeing services across the state.
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