Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): My adjournment is to the Minister for Mental Health, and the action I seek is that the minister requests his department to provide me with a briefing on perinatal mental health services in the inner north.

This is a historic week for mental health policy as we anticipate the tabling of the final report of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Among the many critical issues explored by the commission was perinatal mental health, an issue close to my heart. The birth of a child can be exciting and life changing, but it is also challenging and tumultuous. Mental health risks are heightened for mums and partners. One in five mums and one in 10 partners experience perinatal anxiety and depression each year. The impact of perinatal mental illness for families can be long lasting and costly for our community, but we know that early intervention and access to quality specialised services can make a real difference. Sadly, many families continue to face barriers to accessing support.

I recently asked for a report to be prepared on perinatal mental health in the inner north by parliamentary intern Tess Meaden. The report found that perinatal services in the inner north are unable to meet current demand levels and identified a number of social, economic and geographic barriers impacting parents in my electorate of Northcote. Locally, parents face significant service gaps, with a distinct lack of public perinatal services. The report found there are no public early parenting centres or mother-baby units across the inner north, with access to some specialised services like sleep units largely dependent on the family’s ability to access private health care. Long waitlists for both EPCs and mother-baby units demonstrate that the demand for these services is high, and that demand is only set to increase as our population grows. These long waitlists, a lack of affordable care and long travel times were all highlighted as barriers discouraging local families from seeking help.

Geographic service gaps and a high level of demand make Northcote ideally located to host perinatal mental health services. I am excited about our statewide $135 million expansion of early parenting centres, an incredible initiative, and I know we will see more exciting reform come out of the royal commission. But I am keen to hear more about how we can expand the perinatal services available across the inner north to effectively reach parents and better support local families in Northcote.