Cardinia calls for better access to mental health services – closer to home – to address a critical lack of available and affordable mental health services locally.

The heart of the problem lies in insufficient community-based services for individuals and families.

There is not much available between a general practitioner and the emergency department – ‘the missing middle’.

We need large-scale investment in ‘the missing middle’. This will take pressure off emergency departments and keep more people safe, well, out of jail, supported, employed and housed in the community.

Adult mental health centres are part of the solution.

Good mental health and wellbeing is more than just the absence of mental illness. A positive state of mental health and wellbeing is about feeling good, being able to cope with life’s stresses, to work productively, to realise individual potential and to contribute to family and community life.

A key objective in Council’s Liveability Plan is to increase access to equitable mental health services in the shire.

Rapid population growth is placing significant strain on health and community services, so all levels of government must collaborate to strategically plan the right services in the right places, at the right time.