Your voice matters in shaping mental health services for the North Coast.

Recent reforms have transformed our region’s mental health, suicide prevention, and alcohol and other drugs services. Now it’s time to hear from you. How are these changes working in your community?

Whether you’re accessing services, supporting someone who does, or simply care about the wellbeing of our region, your experiences and insights are crucial.

The Better Wellbeing Community Survey 2025 is your opportunity to influence the future of mental health care on the North Coast. Together, we can ensure everyone in our community has access to the right support when they need it most. 

The survey is open from the 29 September – 19 October, 2025.

How can you get involved?

If you would like to be involved, you can complete the Better Wellbeing Community Survey or participate in an interview or focus group. 

We are interested in hearing from the community about their knowledge and experiences with mental health, psychosocial and alcohol and other drug services in the North Coast area. This survey will help us look at the services from the perspective of the people accessing the services. It’s important that we hear from a broad cross-section of our community, so we encourage you to contribute and have your say.

1. Complete an anonymous Better Wellbeing Community Survey

  • This 10-minute survey will be available to complete for 3 weeks in October each year (from 2024-2026).
  • The survey asks questions about:
    • Your age, gender identity, and other characteristics
    • Mental health services
    • Alcohol and other drug (AOD) services
    • Children’s health care
    • Community needs and strengths
    • Your satisfaction and your experiences
  • You will only be asked questions relevant to you and your care. You may skip questions or stop at any point in the survey.

The annual Better Wellbeing Survey is open to all North Coast residents and visitors aged 18 years and over.

The survey is now closed, but you can still register below to take part in an interview or focus group.

Take the survey.

2. Participate in an interview or focus group

  • If you register your interest and are invited to participate, you can choose to participate in a 30-minute semi-structured interview or 60-minute focus group.
  • You have the choice to take part online, over the phone, or face to face.
  • You can register your interest from the 29 Sept – 19 Oct, 2025. The interviews and focus groups will be conducted across Oct and Nov 2025.
  • These confidential interviews and focus groups will be held with a researcher from the project team at First Person Consulting.
  • If you have experiences with local services, you will be asked about:
    • Your experiences accessing services, getting the care that’s right for you, and getting it at the right time
    • Any barriers to accessing care or anything that made it easier
    • The types of services, referrals, supports, and treatments you were offered, or that you would have liked to be offered
  • If you aren’t accessing services yourself, you will be asked to:
    • Share your opinions on health service availability, accessibility, and appropriateness.

Interviews or Focus Groups are open to all North Coast residents and visitors aged 12 years and over.

Register your interest to participate in an interview or focus group.

Why are we conducting the survey and evaluation?

In 2022-23, Healthy North Coast undertook a review of the mental health, suicide prevention, and alcohol and other drugs services on the North Coast. This review was in response to data showing a lack of improvement in local outcomes and community concerns regarding access to services.

Healthy North Coast continues to work with our local community, service providers, and our two local health districts (hospital-based providers) to make changes and improve the services available within our local communities. This is called ‘service reform’, and these improved services are now being delivered by contracted providers across the North Coast: The Buttery, EACH, and Mission Australia.

The service reform is designed to give everyone living on the North Coast the right care at the right time, looking at their whole health, including how they feel emotionally, physically, and socially.

This evaluation will consider whether the service changes have made a difference.

  • What’s working?
  • What could be improved?
  • What can we learn from the reform?

Who is performing the evaluation?

Healthy North Coast has contracted First Person Consulting to undertake an independent evaluation of the mental health, suicide prevention, and alcohol and other drugs services on the North Coast.

First Person Consulting specialises in systems thinking, social research, program evaluation, and design. They will be leading the delivery of the evaluation and will be conducting interviews and focus groups to capture the insights and experiences of North Coast community members.

What if I have questions about the survey or participating in an interview or focus group?

For any questions related to the evaluation of the Service Reform, please contact: servicereform@fpconsulting.com.au

Is the survey confidential?

This survey is completely anonymous and confidential, no personal identifying information will be shared or published and your data will not be used for any other purpose. If you are completing the survey you will need to fill in the Participant Informed Consent form prior to answering the survey questions. 

The Bellberry Human Research Ethics Committee has reviewed and approved this study in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2023).