When Emma, a primary school teacher in rural Victoria, completed her training as a mental health and wellbeing leader last year, she realised the role was less about crisis management and more about changing how schools think. She now helps colleagues embed mental health strategies into everyday classroom practice, supports teachers to recognise students struggling with anxiety or depression, and works with families to build resilience across the school community.
Emma's story reflects a significant shift in Australian education policy. By the end of 2026, every government and low-fee non-government primary school in Victoria will employ a mental health and wellbeing leader (MHWL) like Emma. The Victorian Government is investing $200 million over four years, plus $93.7 million ongoing, to embed mental health support into schools rather than treating it as an afterthought or a crisis response.
For students like those Emma teaches, the stakes could not be higher. Nearly two in five young Australians aged 16 to 24 experience a 12-month mental disorder, while anxiety disorders affect one in three in this age group. Among adolescents aged 15 to 17, 27 per cent of young women reported serious mental illness in 2021, representing a sharp increase from 2017. Yet most Australian schools have had no dedicated staff focused on building mental health capability.
What mental health leaders actually do differs from traditional school counselling. They are registered classroom teachers who work across the entire school to build whole-school approaches to wellbeing. They help other teachers identify students struggling with anxiety or depression, embed evidence-based strategies into lessons and classroom environments, support staff wellbeing, and work with families. The focus is prevention and early intervention, not just treating problems after they emerge.
The Victorian rollout, staged between 2023 and 2026, has produced encouraging results. Schools report calmer classrooms, improved student wellbeing, and teachers feeling better equipped to support students' mental health needs. Secondary schools in Victoria already have funded mental health practitioners; the primary school program extends this support to younger students at a critical development stage.
The research is clear on this point: investment in prevention works. Modelling by the Burnet Institute found that investing between $50 million and $1 billion annually into prevention programs could prevent up to 787,000 young Australians from experiencing anxiety and depression by 2050. Yet Australia faces a significant shortage of psychologists and mental health professionals to deliver this prevention work at scale. The federal government is only meeting 35 per cent of its psychology workforce target, the largest shortfall of all mental health professions.
Teachers across Australia report feeling ill-equipped to address student mental health. Many schools lack access to school psychologists or counsellors, especially in regional areas. The Mental Health in Primary Schools program addresses this gap by training existing teaching staff, embedding mental health into the school culture rather than treating it as a specialist service accessible only to some students.
The federal government has committed to expanding psychology training, supporting an additional 500 student places and 681 psychology internships over four years. Yet funding for postgraduate psychology remains low; the Commonwealth contributes $13,000 per psychology student compared to over $27,000 for veterinary science or agriculture.
When the final cohorts of Victorian schools complete the Mental Health in Primary Schools rollout in 2026, the education system will have created new infrastructure for wellbeing: leaders trained in mental health literacy, teachers more confident supporting struggling students, and schools embedding prevention into daily practice. It is not a complete solution to Australia's youth mental health crisis. Waiting lists for psychiatrists remain long, bulk-billing has collapsed, and regional communities lack access to specialist care. But it represents a genuine shift from waiting for crises to emerge and building wellbeing from the ground up.
Parents deserve to know: their child's primary school will have someone thinking strategically about mental health by the end of 2026. Not a counsellor who sees a few students once a week, but a trained educator helping the whole school recognise early signs of struggle and build resilience into how teachers teach and schools operate.