Connect to Wellbeing – Northern Queensland

This service is free for participants.

When a referral comes to Connect to Wellbeing from a GP, Connect to Wellbeing intake staff will validate the referral and schedule an appointment for the consumer to talk with a clinician to undertake an assessment.

A Connect to Wellbeing clinician will then contact the individual to determine their needs as well as relevant and available support services.

Where the eligibility requirements are met, the person will be contacted within three days and an initial appointment will be offered within two weeks.

For referrals to Suicide Prevention Services, the person will be contacted within 24 hours (business days) of the date of referral and offered an appointment with a provider within 72 hours.

Connect to Wellbeing will provide GPs with updates and information about a referral as it is actioned and received by service providers.

Providers of Psychological Therapies will continue to provide a review / feedback at the completion of allocated sessions.

Stepped care is an evidence-based, staged approach to the delivery of mental health services, comprising a hierarchy of interventions—from the least to the most intensive—matched to the individuals’ needs.
It is about ensuring that people can access the most appropriate services for their mental health needs at any given time— including the ability to step-up and step-down to different levels of care as they move along their recovery journey.

Clinical services such as Psychological Therapies will be available to people in need of mild to moderate support who face difficulty in accessing services—such as young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people who are experiencing homelessness, and people in rural and remote communities.

Psychological Therapies replaces services currently delivered under Access to Allied Psychological Services (ATAPS).

These services will continue to be directed to people who cannot access or afford other programs such as the Medicare program, Better Access.

Psychological Therapies accessed through Connect to Wellbeing are complementary to Better Access and not designed to replace services delivered under Better Access.

Where a person has received the full allocation of sessions under the Better Access initiative, and it is considered they would benefit from some additional services, the person may be eligible for Psychological Therapies if they meet relevant eligibility criteria.

An example where a person may meet eligibility requirements could include changed circumstances where the person is no longer able to access Better Access services such as:

• changes in location due to work constraints
• changes in financial circumstances, meaning that they are no longer able to meet the co-payments associated with Better Access services