Uniting Prahran
Rachel WESTAWAY (Prahran) (09:58): Two weeks ago I visited Uniting Prahran on Chapel Street, a key service hub focused on helping people with mental health issues and homelessness on and around Chapel Street and witnessed extraordinary compassion in action – volunteers working tirelessly to support some of our most vulnerable in the community and people struggling with significant mental health issues who desperately need our help. But what I also witnessed was a system failing these people every single day. Uniting are operating often at 70 per cent understaffing, and this means that their services are constrained and their mental health professionals cannot safely conduct outreach work. They cannot go outside to help the very people wandering Chapel Street who need support the most. Just last week their van was stolen, stripping away even more of their limited capacity to reach those in crisis.
This is the reality of frontline mental health services under this government – dedicated organisations like Uniting doing exemplary work with woefully inadequate resources, while people with serious mental health issues and conditions fall through the cracks. The consequences are absolutely devastating, and when we fail to provide proper mental health outreach we see increased crime and antisocial behaviour. We see vulnerable people deteriorating on our streets instead of getting the coordinated care that they deserve. These organisations need more than our admiration, they need proper funding for frontline staff and better linkages between services.