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In an Australian first, the Perrottet government announced in early January the introduction of a new mental health phone line targeted at providing support to individuals from a broad range of linguistic backgrounds.
Following recently announced plans from the federal government to increase the national migration cap to 195,000 places, the NSW government has opted to introduce the service, dubbed the Transcultural Mental Health Line.
The service offers coverage for up to 30 different languages — including Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Korean, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian — and is staffed by registered bilingual mental health professionals across the state.
Nearly 30 per cent of homes in NSW used a language other than English according to the most recent census data, with Mandarin (3.4 per cent), and Arabic (2.8 per cent) topping the list as the most popular non-English languages spoken in homes throughout the state.
Additionally, approximately 35 per cent of the state’s residents were not born in Australia, while just over half the state’s population had either one or both parents born overseas.
The latest census data also found 8 per cent of the state’s population reported having a long-term mental health condition such as depression or anxiety.
Minister for Health Bronnie Taylor believes the service will remove a barrier for individuals from diverse communities struggling with their mental health to seek support.
“While there is a wide range of mental health services available to all NSW residents, language and different cultural understandings of mental health can act as a barrier for people when accessing services,” she said.
Building on this, Minister for Multiculturalism Mark Coure said the initiative is further indicative of the state government’s commitment to supporting its extensive multicultural cohort.
The minister expressed his understanding that “finding the right words to express how we are feeling can be hard, let alone for people that might struggle with English”. Adding “this new service makes mental health support more accessible and will give people the peace of mind to speak freely in a language they are more comfortable with”.
The state’s $3.2 million investment over four years is part of a wider $130 million COVID-19 mental health recovery package announced at the end of 2021.
It also builds on NSW’s largest ever mental health investment of $2.68 billion as part of the 2022-23 NSW Mental Health Budget, which Ms Taylor billed at the time as “more important than ever” considering “mental health issues often appear after a crisis.”
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