Page 2858 - Week 10 - Thursday, 7 October 2021

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leadership, and everyone at the Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing and in ACT Health’s mental health policy team, for their commitment to integrated, caring mental health programs.

A youth navigation portal which has been co-designed with young people, parents and carers, and service providers will soon commence operation. Young people, or a parent or carer, will be able to use the portal to find the right ACT service at the time they need it, and it will provide a range of online resources to help young people understand their mental health. Most importantly, the portal has a dedicated team of youth navigators who will work directly with a young person to help them find the right service. The Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing has also developed guidelines for gender affirming care for mental health, which we will be launching soon. These guidelines are the first of their kind nationally. They will assist practitioners across primary care, non-government services and tertiary mental health services to provide gender-affirming mental health care.

As our community moves towards 2022 and works to create a better normal in a post-pandemic world, the Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing, people with lived experience and their carers, and our community sector will be key to integrating mental health across health care, community services, education, housing and homelessness supports, and emergency services. We will continue working on early intervention and prevention, and delivery of services in the community, and by a diversity of clinicians, including primary care, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, counsellors and peer health workers.

Our ability to maintain a healthy relationship with the environment in which we live, and to stay connected to friends and family and neighbours, will help us build community resilience. So this October, as we navigate our mental health, let us look at how far we have come, and look forward to walking the path ahead of us together towards more accessible mental health services. If you have the chance to tell a friend you love them, please do it. A little love and kindness is good for all of us. I present the following paper:

World Mental Health Day—Ministerial statement, 7 October 2021.

I move:

That the Assembly take note of the paper.

MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Industrial Relations and Workplace Safety, Minister for Planning and Land Management and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.10): I thank Minister Davidson for her commitment to mental health across the ACT. I just wish to add some comments about how we support our frontline personnel.

The health and wellbeing of our emergency services personnel is a key priority for this government. It is important that our emergency services personnel are aware of available support services and that they know we fully support them in minimising


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