HNELHD is providing information sessions to specialist homelessness services, Tamworth Youth Homelessness Support Services, to combat concerns

Over the seven years he's been team leader of Tamworth Youth Homelessness Support Services (SHS), Brett Goodchild said youth mental health has deteriorated over the last two.

"There've been some pretty extraordinary times the last few years, nothing I've ever seen in my life and I'm 50 years old now," he said.

"I've never seen a summer like it was a few years ago that led into coming out of a drought, that's led in to a pandemic, floods, and the whole world has shifted and changed.

"For young people, the world's new and big and interesting enough as it is, let alone that compounded on top of it."

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Hunter New England Local Health District (HNELHD) is providing a series of information sessions to housing providers and specialist homelessness services.

The sessions are designed to provide information, awareness and guidance to support collaborative responses to homelessness and mental health concerns in the community.

SHS, under the Tamworth Family Support Services banner, provides a crisis refuge, transitional housing, outreach work and responds to young people - aged 16 to 25 - who are homeless or at risk.

They manage 60 or 70 cases of youth homelessness at a time, which is over capacity.

There's an underbelly to Tamworth that is brushed aside, Mr Goodchild said, but it's there, it's real, it's extensive.

He said when the payments provided by the government during lockdowns stopped, homelessness began to incline.

"When that money's not there, [young people] outlive their welcome, next minute, the panic, the trauma sets in and it starts to peak," he said.

"There's a saying at the moment, young people don't want social work, they want money - they need money."

As for what would help SHS in its mission:

"Give us a refuge with another 20 rooms, give us another 50 transitional houses," Mr Goodchild said.

"Give us another 500 social housing properties out there that would be accessible to young people.

"And then we'll start seeing some changes."

The sessions are facilitated by HNELHD Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

They will cover topics including self-harm, mental health and substance use, trauma and homelessness, emergency mental health assessment and primary mental health services.

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