{"id":84923,"date":"2024-01-31T14:33:28","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T03:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=84923"},"modified":"2024-01-31T17:34:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T06:34:00","slug":"the-mental-health-epidemic-threatening-australias-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-mental-health-epidemic-threatening-australias-security\/","title":{"rendered":"The mental health epidemic threatening Australia\u2019s security"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

As it prepares Australia to defend itself in a contested region, the ADF has put the call out to young people to join\u2014to achieve its goals, it needs to recruit<\/a> 18,500 more people of serving age by 2040.<\/p>\n

Young people in Australia can seem an enigma to marketing minds and the labour market is no exception. Specifically, recruiters are neglecting a rapidly growing phenomenon affecting many Australian young people\u2014mental illness.<\/p>\n

Not only are distressed young people less likely to do something as difficult (if rewarding) as joining the armed forces than if they were feeling well, but they are also actively barred from exploring this option. According to Defence\u2019s supplementary submission to a Senate Standing Committee on suicide prevention among veterans\u2014a \u2018current psychiatric condition\u2019, defined by diagnosis in the last 12 months, is currently an exclusion condition in a defence force recruiting process.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the issue, 4.2 million people meet this criteria, according to the National Study of Health and Wellbeing conducted<\/a> by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. And with the ADF hoping to get more women into uniform, it\u2019s especially concerning that 24% of females surveyed in that study met this exclusion criteria.<\/p>\n

And even this understates Defence Force Recruiting\u2019s woes. These numbers are even worse among its biggest target market\u2014young people.<\/p>\n

Among those aged 16-24 years, almost two in five (39.6%) had an \u2018active\u2019 mental health diagnosis in 2020-21.<\/p>\n

For females in this age group, that number soared again, to almost half (46.6%). As it stands, this exclusion criterion makes more than a third of young Australians unable to serve in the ADF.<\/p>\n

Defence Force Recruiting likes to paint life in the army as exciting and one of a kind. Announcing their recent campaign, \u2018Live a story worth telling\u2019, a leader described<\/a> Defence personnel\u2019s lived experiences as \u2018filled with laughter, joy, sometimes tears and excitement.\u2019<\/p>\n

While this is certainly true for some members, and no two experiences of any career are the same, it only tells one side of the story. Defence needs to be more transparent about the psychological difficulties members can face during and after their careers.<\/p>\n

The 2021 National Health Survey shows<\/a> that Department of Veterans\u2019 Affairs clients are twice as likely as non-clients to experience an anxiety disorder. Suicide rates for ex-serving members of the armed forces were 24% higher for ex- males, and 102%, or roughly twice as many deaths per 100,000 people, for ex-serving females.<\/p>\n

The ADF\u2019s own mental health prevalence<\/a> report into health and wellbeing transition estimated that 46% of transitioned ADF members had experienced mental illness in the previous 12 months in 2015.<\/p>\n

To address this, the ADF is responding with several initiatives designed to identify changes in the mental health of members. However, these reports<\/a> focus primarily on prevention, rather than management and treatment. They contain extensive discussion of \u2018building resilience\u2019.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the ADF released a report that said, \u2018Lower levels of resilience, as measured by the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), have been linked to attrition from the military and being diagnosed with a mental health condition in the early years of military service\u2019.<\/p>\n

Whether resilience is a useful way of viewing mental health prevention or not, identifying those who are diagnosed with a mental health condition as \u2018lacking resilience\u2019 is absolutely out of touch with the approach of Australian young people. Indeed, it\u2019s at odds with the approach of many mental health professionals.<\/p>\n

Even if preventing mental health issues is possible through \u2018building resilience\u2019, focusing heavily on prevention without addressing treatment can\u2019t work at scale, assuming current trends among young people will hold. The ADF faces a massive mental health challenge.<\/p>\n

With young people entering the ADF every year, Defence must address the growing risks of those with psychological distress entering service. It needs to shift its approach and better help members manage and be willing to help treat low-risk mental illnesses among members, not only prevent them. It can\u2019t only rely on resilience, awareness-building, and exclusion from service. It\u2019s also worth noting that the ADF\u2019s own reports show that exclusion from service itself is a high-risk factor among members that have issues later in life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far too late to prevent the mental health epidemic tearing through the Australian people from reaching the ADF. As Defence builds its workforce in coming years, it will need to deal with members being mentally unwell\u2014often temporarily, when well-treated\u2014at a growing rate.<\/p>\n

To meet its ambitious targets, Defence needs a recruiting strategy intelligently targeted at young Australians. This means going beyond platitudes about resilience and expanding the ongoing treatment of low-risk mental health disorders in the ADF. This means acknowledging that a large portion of potential candidates, perhaps eventually most, have faced some kind of mental health issue. Like it or not, some people who need treatment are going to end up in service.<\/p>\n

There was a time when mild asthma excluded a candidate for service. Eventually, the ADF came to realise that low-risk cases could be managed, introduced<\/a> a system for members who suffer from it, and relaxed this requirement.<\/p>\n

In a strategic environment that demands a surge of participation from young Australians to make their country safe, having sought help for mental health shouldn\u2019t be seen as any different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As it prepares Australia to defend itself in a contested region, the ADF has put the call out to young people to join\u2014to achieve its goals, it needs to recruit 18,500 more people of serving …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1721,"featured_media":84927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,3111,33,2425,202],"class_list":["post-84923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-defence-force","tag-aukus","tag-capability","tag-defence-capability","tag-personnel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe mental health epidemic threatening Australia\u2019s security | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-mental-health-epidemic-threatening-australias-security\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The mental health epidemic threatening Australia\u2019s security | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As it prepares Australia to defend itself in a contested region, the ADF has put the call out to young people to join\u2014to achieve its goals, it needs to recruit 18,500 more people of serving ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-mental-health-epidemic-threatening-australias-security\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-01-31T03:33:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-01-31T06:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/20220623army8620637_0171-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1549\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrick Cooney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrick Cooney\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-mental-health-epidemic-threatening-australias-security\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/20220623army8620637_0171-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/20220623army8620637_0171-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1549,\"caption\":\"Australian Army Lieutenant Eamon Coulthard from Echo Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, demonstrates the \u0093advances through\u0094 as part of bayonet assault course training at Kapooka, New South Wales. *** Local Caption *** Completing \u0093basic training\u0094 at Kapooka - whether it be through the Army Recruit Course (ARC) or the Part-Time Recruit Course (PTRC) - is the first challenge a soldier must face as they embark on an Army career. 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