Aussies offered free mental health help from Beyond Blue for issues related to COVID-19
Life has been turned upside by COVID-19 and many Aussies are feeling the strain. A new free mental wellbeing service, run by charity Beyond Blue is now available.
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If coronavirus and the lockdown are making you lonely, anxious or stressed, you can now get help from a free mental wellbeing support service operating 24/7.
As mental health groups report a 30 per cent increase on calls for help, Health Minister Greg Hunt will on Thursday launch the service which will be run by mental health charity Beyond Blue.
The Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service is designed to help with the mental health impact of the pandemic, including fear, financial and family stress, anxiety and loneliness.
Thousands of Australians have lost their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 shut down and are experiencing financial stress while parents are under stress working from home while trying to educate their children now schools have closed.
And many people have been cut off from family and friends and activities they enjoy as a result of the COVID-19 shut down and social distancing rules.
The service can be accessed through a web page and offers online wellbeing tips, self-help tools, telephone counselling from trained mental health professionals.
You can also chat online with others, share experiences and exchange supportive messages through an online community forum.
The site provides referrals to other services and information, including financial support and provides easy links to Beyond Blue’s online peer support forums.
It also contains links to emergency and crisis services.
Beyond Blue said the service has information on coping with loneliness and self-isolation, managing your mental health if you have the virus, ways to deal with job loss and financial worries, supporting friends and family, coping as a healthcare worker, and support for essential service workers and small businesses.
The Australian Government will provide $10 million over 2019-20 and 2020-21 to Beyond Blue for the service.
“I would like to thank Beyond Blue and their partners for building and launching this critical service so rapidly. What they have achieved is remarkable and will benefit millions of Australians” Mr Hunt said.
Health fund Medibank has also contributed $5 million towards funding to the service.
The new support service can be accessed through the website:
https://coronavirus.beyondblue.org.au
Looking after your mental health as the pandemic unfolds is just as important as protecting your physical health, Mr Hunt said.
Beyond Blue Chair The Hon Julia Gillard AC said the service would be further developed in the coming weeks and months to guide all Australians through uncertain and trying times.
“We’ve built this service rapidly because we understand that all Australians need this support immediately and that now more than ever, prevention matters,” she said.
“Just as people are looking after their physical health, we’re asking people to actively look after their mental health.
“We need to support people to cope and stay well, and we need to intervene early to halt any decline in the conditions of those already living with mental illness so that we reduce the longer-term impacts.”
Beyond Blue CEO Georgie Harman said Beyond Blue had seen a 30 per cent spike in contacts over the past two weeks and “on some days, as many as one in three calls to our existing Support Service is about COVID-19,” Ms Harman said.