Social workers are now at the frontline of the fight to mitigate Queensland's mental healthcare crisis amid a nationwide shortage of psychologists.
According to the Australia Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2020, there were 5,811 psychologists in the state, which equated to about one psychologist for every 800 Queenslanders.
The latest population data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows 50,162 people migrated to Queensland from interstate in the 12 months to December last year.
Bond University's psychology clinic director Will Drotsky said the recent population spike on the Gold Coast meant many clinics could not keep up with demand.
"For the well-known and established clinics on the Gold Coast, you are looking at a wait time from four weeks up to six months," he said.
His comments came one year after the Australian Association of Psychologists said allowing provisional psychologists to provide Medicare-rebated services would ease the burden on the system.
Increase in home-based services
Accredited mental health social worker Monica Lord, who specialises in children and family therapy, has been working to fill the gap.
She has seen a huge influx in patients taking up her mobile service, which treats people in their homes from Tweed Heads up to Eagleby and west to Canungra.
Ms Lord said the mental health crisis is an opportunity for other allied healthcare professionals to step in and pick up the slack.
"I am seeing a big increase in the number of people being referred to my practice, and I'm also hearing amongst my professional groups of social workers in Queensland and Australia-wide," she said.
Ms Lord says the community is beginning to recognise there are more choices when it comes to mental health care.
"Historically, people have always heard about psychology as their primary choice for mental health care, but that doesn't always fit everyone," she said.
"We really look at the person and how they fit into their environment, their community — how things affect them on a more systemic level."
A multidisciplinary approach
Mr Drotsky said a multidisciplinary approach to mental health care is becoming more popular across the public sector.
The Gold Coast Community Legal Centre has recently begun using allied health professionals as a preventative measure to support its staff and clients dealing with traumatic situations.
The social workers support clients in digesting legal information and connecting them to other services, such as Centrelink.
The centre director Victoria Spiel said the integration of social workers at the Gold Coast office created a holistic, integrated service for clients after they received funding for two positions in 2020.
"It's really benefited both the community and our solicitors," she said.
"Because they don't feel that they're left alone holding some really complex, difficult matters that people bring into our centre."
Last year, Queensland Community Legal Centres helped more than 53,000 clients, but 80,000 others were turned away due to a lack of resourcing.
Support for 'vicarious trauma'
The director of Community Legal Centres Queensland, Roslyn Monroe, said social workers were also supporting lawyers at the centres.
"They work to make sure our staff and volunteers are protected from vicarious trauma in hearing difficult stories day in and day out," she said.
In the past year, social workers at the centre have seen nearly 245 clients. Of those, 50 per cent live with a disability, 14 per cent speak a language other than English at home, and 40 per cent are experiencing domestic or family violence.
"We had a client come in who had been experiencing domestic violence for over 10 years," Ms Spiel said.
"Talking to the solicitor, she was saying that it was all her fault, that she should've left sooner — things like that.
"We swiftly referred her to the social work team who talked her through the cycle of domestic violence and the trauma associated with it."
For most of the clients at the legal centre, their social worker is the only mental health care they have access to.
Ms Spiel says the social work sessions give clients the support they need and assist them in taking "the steps to create a better position in life".
Mr Drotsky said the availability of social workers could enrich client treatment, but should not replace the role of psychologists when they were needed.
"Mental health issues can be complex and at times life threatening, so there is a need for adequate training and support for these practitioners," he said.
"I don't think we want to replace each other but we want to contribute to the mental well-being of the Australian population."
