The Morrison Government will provide an additional $2 million to the National LGBTI Health Alliance over two years for the peer support telephone and online support service, QLife.
Demand for the service has steadily increased over the past four years —up 20 per cent in 2017-18 alone. The service has also increased its service hours and staffing levels to meet demand.
QLife is the only national support service for the Australian LGBTI population including LGBTI individuals, their friends and families and health professionals.
It provides anonymous, LGBTI peer support and referral for people wanting to talk about a range of issues including sexuality, identity, gender, bodies, feelings or relationships.
The services are free and include both telephone and webchat support, delivered by trained LGBTI community members across the country.
The Morrison Government remains committed to addressing the mental health of all Australians, including the LGBTI community, and this also relates to opposition to gay conversion therapy. The Government will work with the states, which have legal responsibility in this area, to ensure such practices are not supported or occurring.
The Government funds a number of programs to support the specific needs of the LGBTI community including:
- MindOUT! will receive $36 million from 2019-21 for its project to improve mental health and prevent suicide in the community by working with mainstream organisations.
- The National LGBTI Health Alliance has received $4 million over three years to provide LGBTI Awareness Training to ageing and aged care providers and workers.
- Black Rainbow has been funded to develop culturally appropriate Indigenous LGBTIQ information materials to support health care settings to become more culturally responsive to the community.
- eheadspace has received $6.4 million in 2018-19 to provide telephone and web-based support services to 12-25 year olds, which includes the online peer support forum, Qheadspace.
The Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan recognises the mental health needs of the LGBTIQ community and all jurisdictions are working on actions under the plan.