Media Release – Additional Funding for Mental Health Peak Bodies Welcomed

Sydney, 17 June 2026

Mental Health Carers NSW welcomes the announcement of additional funding for mental health peak bodies. Mental Health Carers NSW, Being – Mental Health Consumers NSW, and the Mental Health Coordinating Council will each get an extra $333,000 per annum for the next 4 years, which will strengthen advocacy and sector leadership to achieve better outcomes for people experiencing mental health challenges, families and carers and community managed service providers.

This investment recognises the critical role that the peak mental health organisations play in representing people experiencing mental health challenges, their families, carers, and communities, by helping ‘lived experience’ to shape responsive and effective mental health policy.

Jonathan Harms, CEO of Mental Health Carers NSW, said the additional funding would help ensure the sector can continue to provide strong leadership and contribute to ongoing mental health reform.

“This is a particularly important time for mental health and psychosocial disability reform, with the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement being renegotiated after a devastating Productivity Commission Review, big changes to the NDIS, and the need to design foundational supports for the 233,500 people with major psychosocial disabilities the Productivity Commission identified outside the NDIS, often currently receiving no direct assistance except from families and carers. It is crucial their experiences and needs inform any changes being made.

Families and carers must fill all the gaps in our imperfect mental health and disability systems for the people they support, and often get little help themselves. But helping organisations like ours amplify their voices offers government the best chance to find the issues and the solutions, so they can improve our mental health systems to fairly and efficiently serve all the people of NSW better. This funding demonstrates the government’s genuine commitment to that often-challenging process and we thank them.”

Mental Health Carers NSW thanks Minister Rose Jackson on behalf of the NSW state government, (the Minister for Health Ryan Park, and Premier Minns), for the commitment tostrengthening the mental health system in NSW and recognising the contribution of peak bodies to supporting the voice of lived experience in that process.

The funding will help Mental Health Carers NSW continue engaging with mental health carers, advocating for recognition and engagement of families and carers in care, for improved carer and mental health services, fostering collaboration across the sector, and ensuring the voices of carers of people experiencing mental health challenges and of the people they support, remain at the centre of policy and service reform.

Mental Health Carers NSW looks forward to continuing to work closely with the Minister, carers and consumers, the Mental Health Branch, the Mental Health Coordinating Council, stakeholders and collaborators in advocacy and the NSW community to improve mental health and carer outcomes in NSW.

For media enquiries
Jonathan Harms – CEO
Mental Health Carers NSW Inc.
jonathan.harms@mentalhealthcarersnsw.org
https://www.mentalhealthcarersnsw.org/
02 9332 0777

Click here to download the media release.