Leviathans: Headspace-like behemoths swallow resources

The Australian Commonwealth government is funding a unique type of non-government organisation (NGO) that raises challenges for provision of mental healthcare in Australia. We define such NGOs as organisations that seek to combine advocacy and media strategies with policy development, research and provision of mental healthcare, and describe them as Leviathans due to their vast scope of activities and budgets. Headspace and Beyond Blue are prominent examples. We focus here on the Headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation, a charity which receives both Commonwealth government funding and public donations. Headspace operates as a national franchise with the foundation offering assistance and support for the Commonwealth-funded Headspace centres that are run by lead agencies, including many NGOs (Headspace, 2018). This branding and franchise model, shared with Beyond Blue, is quite unique: directly state-funded public mental health services (acute hospitals and the community sector) are not competing in this space, and suffer as a result.