Head to Health
Help to navigate mental health, suicide prevention service and alcohol and other drug services in the North Brisbane and Moreton Bay region.
Mental health, alcohol and other drug and suicide prevention services
Brisbane North PHN works with local communities, consumers, carers, health professionals, hospitals and community mental health providers to design local solutions to meet local needs, via our joint regional plan 'Planning for Wellbeing'.
Brisbane North Safe Spaces provides people experiencing emotional distress, friendly and welcoming support, in a safe environment, as an alternative to emergency departments.
Safe Spaces open from 5.00 pm – 9.00 pm on weekdays and participate in a coordinated calendar of opening hours amongst the four spaces, over the weekends.
Find out more by visiting My Mental Health.
Safe Spaces evaluation and quarterly reports
Brisbane North PHN engaged Nous Group to conduct a three-year evaluation to monitor, measure and report on outputs, outcomes, impacts and opportunities for improvement of Brisbane North PHN’s Safe Spaces program. The evaluation has now been completed.
A summary of the full evaluation report (November 2024) is now available to download.
Key findings:
- Safe Spaces are highly effective and cost saving
- Safe Spaces reached nearly 2,500 people from a broad range of socio-demographic backgrounds over 10,560 visits between April 2022 and September 2024.
- Safe Spaces supported guests to reduce immediate distress with 86 per cent of visits resulting in significantly reductions in distress and 74 per cent of respondents to a guest survey agreeing that their experience at Safe Spaces made them feel more confident to manage stress and difficult situations.
- Safe Spaces have played a key role in suicide prevention for many guests, who attribute the Safe Spaces with saving their lives and keeping them safe. 78 per cent of guests agreed that Safe Spaces improved their ability to create safety for themselves. Disruptions to the delivery of Safe Spaces would create considerable safety risks for many guests.
- Since 2022, guests reported that Safe Spaces attendance avoided 1,596 Emergency Department (ED) presentations, which corresponds to a total avoided cost of $16.3 million, comprising $1.7 million from avoided ED presentations and $14.6 million in avoided subsequent acute admissions following ED presentations.
- Safe Spaces are projected to prevent approximately 895 ED presentations annually, saving the system $5.4 million.
Please contact the PHN if you would like further information.
The earlier April 2023 and July 2023 reports continue to be available to download as they present early insights from the pilot informed by stakeholder engagement, key program documentation and quantitative service data.
Head to Health
Head to Health can connect you, or someone you care for, to mental health support.
The Head to Health phone line will operate 8:30 am - 5:00 pm, Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays). Callers after hours will have the option to leave a message and receive a call back the next business day. Please note that Head to Health is not a crisis service.
Phone: 1800 595 212
For further information on the national Head to Health initiative, visit headtohealth.gov.au.
My Mental Health services map and service magazine
GPs now have access to an expanded range of PHN commissioned mental health and suicide prevention services to support their patients.
For a quick guide to services, download the My Mental Health services map.
For a full list of service providers, download the mental health, suicide prevention and alcohol and other drugs service magazine.
Our approach to stepped care
Watch the video to learn about our vision for stepped care or download our stepped care fact sheet.
