Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Adjournment

Be Well in the Ranges

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (19:00): (1091) I have a matter for the Minister for Mental Health. The action I seek is for the minister to commit to ongoing funding for the Be Well in the Ranges program running across the Kinglake Ranges. This is a valuable program that needs to be continued. It was initiated in 2019 to support the community around the 10th anniversary of Black Saturday. There has been a growing demand around long-term PTSD, complex intergenerational trauma and many other serious mental health issues relating to surviving the disaster. Since its inception over 1470 people have participated in the program, with 215 referrals made to other services. Between September 2023 and August 2024, a 10-month snapshot reveals that 726 sessions were conducted. During this period 207 people attended psychology, music therapy or counselling sessions, 94 new clients engaged with the service and 1078 sessions were attended by returning clients.

It was originally funded by the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, but for the last 4½ years it has been supported by the state government on a year-to-year basis. The program offers two psychologists for 8 hours a week and a counsellor for 8 hours a week, as well as a provisional psychologist for 16 hours a week. It provides group music therapy programs in local kindergartens and primary schools. It emerged that the Kinglake Ranges community are still very affected by the Black Saturday bushfire that devastated the area. In the last six months there has been an increase in community members seeking help for the first time and accessing psychology and counselling services. This includes a school having requested help for its students.

It is getting towards the end of the financial year, and there is a lot of uncertainty around whether or not this program will continue to receive funding. There is a risk of losing the team of subcontracted mental health staff, who have invaluable experience within the community. Without this funding, the community will be left without accessible or affordable mental health support. With the nearest acute care mental health hospital located in Melbourne, the police in the ranges act as the crisis assessment and treatment team.

Representatives from the program took the initiative to email the Minister for Health and the Minister for Mental Health separately, pleading for ongoing funding. The Minister for Health forwarded the email to the Minister for Mental Health, but they have not received a response yet. They have also emailed the Premier. It is not a lot of money – about $150,000 will help them, and when you look at the amount of money that is wasted on so many other projects, this amount is less than one ghost worker on a Big Build site. I strongly urge the minister to action this request.