This national day is to ensure that every young person has access to youth friendly mental health services, no matter where they live.

Headspace day celebrated 10 years of innovation in youth mental health and was also triggered by alarming new research from Orygen and headspace that revealed more than 50 per cent of young people were waiting six or more months before seeking help for mental health issues.

This period of waiting and worrying can have detrimental effects.

From social isolation to relationship breakdowns, drug and alcohol abuse and in severe cases, incidents of self-harm or suicide.

The research also uncovered that close to 50 per cent of young people said financial cost was a barrier in preventing them from getting treatment. Nearly half said they believed they could not be helped and more than 50 per cent said they were afraid of what others would think.

We need to change these perceptions.

Every year, a quarter of all young people in this country will experience mental health issues and we want them all to know headspace is here to help.

With 95 centres across Australia, integrated with a phone and online chat service eheadspace, over the past decade headspace has enabled more than 270,000 young people to access mental health care.

We will soon expand to 110 headspace centres thanks to the government’s election commitment and a ringing endorsement of headspace as its model for youth mental health care for the future.

Headspace has made outstanding progress over the past 10 years but we still have a way to go. Access is crucial and help seeking is the first step that every young person must make and we need to continue to provide effective and easy pathways to make sure this can happen for everyone.

We want to see every Australian community with a headspace centre.

If you who would like to support headspace visit headspaceday.org.au to see how you and your local community can get involved or give a donation to support young people in need.

And finally, thanks to everyone who took part in the first headspace day. We look forward to you all joining us again next year.

I write regarding the article by Samara McPhedran (“Lever-action shotgun claims pure fiction”, The Border Mail, October 20).

I really don't care what qualifications she purports to have. I was brought up with firearms and taught by my brother-in-law to treat them with respect, as well as the shooting clubs I belonged to. 

There is no need to have a semi-automatic weapon in Australia or a weapon that carries more than a two-shot magazine.

And to say that Canada, the UK and even the US have implemented effective firearm (not gun) violence reduction programs is a joke. 

By the way, gun refers to unrifled barrels – something which Dr McPhedran should be well aware of if she is so educated in firearms.

And of course rifle refers to rifled barrels so the term handgun is a misnomer and always has been. 

There is no “poor quality of debate” in Australia re firearm control which should be absolute and not half-hearted and that's coming from an ex-shooter.

If you want a safe society bring in absolute firearms controls, stop local gunshops selling illegal firearms, stop imports, illegal and otherwise and let the idiots rely on knives as their choice of weapon, and I'm sure they will.