Mental Health and AOD - July 2026

West Coast Youth and Community Support (WCYCS) currently offer two alcohol and other drugs (AOD) programs funded by Country SA PHN:

• AOD Counselling
• Healing Circles Day Centre

Healing Circles is an AOD peer-to-peer support drop-in centre for adults in Port Lincoln. Healing Circles are predominantly accessed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. WCYCS identified an opportunity to extend the Healing Circles model to support young people who are using alcohol and other drugs. This provides access to valuable peer-to-peer support services for young people in the local community, that recognises the impacts of substance use, alongside mental health and physical health concerns.

Country SA PHN funded WCYCS to pilot a Healing Circle for young people under 18 years of age. The Youth Healing Circle program provides both:

• a roaming Youth Healing Circle
• a Youth Healing Circle in the local Youth hub

The roaming Youth Healing Circles is unique to WCYCS as it is their first program without a set location. This provides flexibility to deliver the Healing Circle sessions in different locations around Port Lincoln on a weekly basis.

The format of the sessions has allowed young people to actively engage in the program. They have been found to plan their day around the Healing Circle sessions and book their pick-ups in advance. The preliminary outcomes are positive, for example, with young people re-engaging with school or with the transition and learning centre. We look forward to learning more about the outcomes of the program as the pilot is evaluated. West Coast Youth and Community Support will consider the effectiveness and sustainability of key elements of the program, and how this may inform future delivery of their AOD programs for young people in the future.

The General Practice Mental Health Standards Collaboration has developed a new suite of resources to assist GPs in providing inclusive, trauma-informed and culturally safe care to patients from diverse backgrounds. One such resource addresses LGBTQIA+ patients.

The resource offers advice on providing trauma-informed and culturally safe care to LGBTQIA+ patients, including practical tips to build trust, ask sensitive questions respectfully, and recognise when to proceed with caution.

The resource also features tailored information around the unique challenges LGBTQIA+ patients face, such as gender identity and sexual identity, intersectionality, body image concerns and eating disorders, specific administrative processes and more.

You can read more about the resource on the GPMHSC website or find the full suite of resources on the Specific Populations Resource Hub.

eReferral is available for general practices in country South Australia to digitally refer anyone experiencing mental health concerns to primary mental health care services from July. 

Country SA PHN is activating this capacity regionwide, enabled by secure digital messaging via HealthLink, as a streamlined extension of the Medical Mental Health phone service referrals. Phone service referrals will continue, however GPs and other health professionals will also now be able to send and track referrals within their existing practice management software.

This new methodology will alleviate administrative tasks for clinicians – no faxing or printing, less data entry – and allow instant confirmation, faster processing, and more informative tracking of referral progress. More efficient service navigation to and by the Medicare Mental Health intake team will facilitate connections for clients to the most appropriate mental health support. This addition is eagerly awaited by our primary care clinicians.

Country SA PHN looks forward to supporting country South Australians via eReferrals by:

• Connecting people seamlessly to the most appropriate local service to meet their identified needs
• Working with service providers to create streamlined referral pathways into and out of the Medicare Mental Health Intake and Assessment service
• Providing a central point to connect people to other services in the region, including through offering information and advice about mental health and AOD use
• Providing holistic assessment of needs provided by a mental health professional using the Commonwealth’s Initial Assessment and Referral Decision Support Tool (IAR-DST)
• Collaborating to deliver a state-wide integrated intake service working under a nationally consistent model to ensure better outcomes for all people accessing primary mental health care services in South Australia.
• Monitoring demand for service and building capacity across the network, inclusive of any digital enhancements and resourcing required to support the activity.

To find out more see the Mental Health Referral Frequently Asked Questions.

Consultation is now open for the newly developed Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (CPC) for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) and Youth Mental Health.

The Mental Health CPC can be accessed on the consultation page of the CPC website. Feedback can be provided via email to [email protected] until Friday 10^th July 2026.

CPC for Adult Community Mental Health and Older Person’s Mental Health Services are currently in development and will be released for consultation in due course.

The Mental Health CPC have been developed in collaboration with multidisciplinary clinicians in secondary/tertiary care, General Practitioners (GPs), lived experience representatives and the Department for Health and Wellbeing (DHW). These criteria serve to streamline referrals into the South Australian public health system by providing a guideline for determining which patients should be referred to public specialist outpatient clinics. CPC provide clinicians and the public with clear information about necessary clinical information required for referrals to be accepted and triaged.

The CPC Website now includes 35 specialties, covering over 530 individual conditions.

For further information regarding the CPC Project, please contact DHW Clinical Prioritisation Criteria Team at [email protected].