Funding for mental health and suicide prevention in Hunter-New England and the Central Coast has more than doubled in six years to $32 million, a new report shows.
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The report showed high demand for mental health services managed by the region's federal Primary Health Network [PHN].
PHN mental health and suicide prevention manager Leah Morgan said the services were available to a range of people from children to seniors.
"Demand for mental health services is increasing across the board for lots of reasons. Demand always outstrips supply," Ms Morgan said.
"We've put in business cases to expand the funding for additional programs. There's been an expansion in the breadth of services offered, as well as the dollar value for each of those programs."
The report said the PHN provided more than 3000 psychology sessions to children under 12 in a year, through "one-off funding from the NSW Ministry of Health".
A pilot program was run for a year through Uniting's mental health service and Beam Health, and will run for another 12 months.
Ms Morgan said the PHN had not previously been funded "specifically for children".
"We identified a big gap in children's mental health," she said.
"If we had more funding and staff in that area, we would definitely use that for early intervention."
She said the children involved were being treated for various conditions.
"There's the NDIS but there are kids who need testing for eligibility, which is thousands of dollars parents can't afford.
"There's children with early mental illness - anxiety, depression. Then you have children of parents with mental illness.
"They need support, particularly with economic changes when people lose their jobs and families are breaking down. That's a lot of stress on kids."
She added that "troubles at school, bullying and social media" were other issues.
"Device addiction is a huge one we get told about, and vaping more so than other drugs and alcohol at a young age."
She said people were now more accepting of seeking help from mental health services, which was a factor in higher demand.
"People are happy to say they need a hand, instead of keeping it quiet."
Programs for older adults and residential aged care provided more than 1800 hours of exercise physiology services through University of Newcastle students.
It had boosted the "strength and social connection" of participants, while helping students develop.
She said mental health services relied "not just on the supply of dollars, but the workforce".
"Even if we were to double that amount of money [$32 million] again, we wouldn't necessarily have the qualified and experienced clinicians and workers to deliver the services."
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