WHILE guests gathered at an event in Mandurah on Monday night to raise funds for youth mental health services, a young local man took his own life.
The event, organised by City of Mandurah counsellor Dave Schumacher, was aimed at raising the $100,000 needed to run school workshops on mental health and counselling for students for the rest of the year.
The news of the latest death prompted Mandurah MP David Templeman to call for urgent funding to help combat youth mental health issues in the Peel.
Mr Templeman urged the state government to immediately fund GP down south’s 3 Tier Youth Mental Health Program, which requires $400,000 over three years to deliver services to schools in the Peel region.
“I raised this project last year in the parliament,” Mr Templeman said.
“It’s a ready-made project that’s ready to go and can be rolled out across the regions right now.
“The business case has been done; there have been presentations to ministers, and quite frankly it is ready to go and it must be funded.”
Mr Templeman said if money could not be found through the state’s mental health strategy, Royalty for Regions should provide funding and the Peel Development Commission should be considering an “emergency proposal” to fund the project.
“They should bypass the red tape and implement it now,” he said.
While Peel Youth Services executive Be Westbrook agreed more could be done to support at-risk youth, she said there was no one solution and Mandurah had significant resources for young people already in place.
“There’s many layers to this and young people respond in many different ways,” she said.
“Young people need whatever they need; if they need breathing space, that’s what they need.”
She said Mandurah was a sad place at the moment for many young people.
“We have a broad variety of services here in the Peel, but sometimes the kids just aren’t ready to engage,” she said.
“But the more we can do, the better off our community will be.”
A spokesperson from Peel Development Commission said the commission would be contacting David Templeman's office directly about the issue.
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