Carrie Lethborg knows how difficult it is for young people in northern Tasmania to access free mental health support.

Key points: A social worker says it has been "extremely hard" accessing youth mental health services

A social worker says it has been "extremely hard" accessing youth mental health services Launceston headspace has an eight-week waiting list and has closed its walk-in service

Launceston headspace has an eight-week waiting list and has closed its walk-in service Government has provided extra funding but delivery time for additional services is not known

She has spent the past few weeks trying to arrange counselling for a family member who is experiencing anxiety, only to be told the north's only free service - headspace Launceston - has a seven to eight-week waiting list.

"I was just really thrown by that because my experience is that that is the only service you can go to unless you go privately," Dr Lethborg said.

"If a child is saying 'I'm having anxiety' or 'I'm having dark thoughts' … I think it's really important that they are heard immediately."

A social worker with more than 30 years in the health sector, Dr Lethborg moved back from Melbourne to Launceston several years ago to help with the fallout from family deaths, including the accidental death of a niece witnessed by siblings.

Since that time, several young family members have experienced mental health issues and accessing care, she said, had been "extremely hard".

Family members waited in the emergency department (ED) of the Launceston General Hospital (LGH) with a child needing urgent mental health support, only to be sent home with a letter to take to their GP.

"This kind of response re-traumatises an already traumatised young person and is devastating for the family," she said.

Convincing a young person to access care could sometimes take weeks, she said, and then to have them waiting in ED was not ideal.

"I would never take a young person to the ED, knowing the limitations of the mental health services there and the often-excruciating wait times without my own assessment that they are at risk and needing medical care," she said.

But the latest blow came when she was told the waiting time for a headspace referral was eight weeks.

"Clearly the need for mental health services for young people in Tasmania is growing. All the stats show that," she said.

"Suicide rates are going up, service use stats are going up, so we clearly need more funding for services like headspace, and we also desperately need inpatient services."

Increased demand causing delays

Headspace Launceston manager Wayne Frost said demand at the centre had grown each year.

"Over the last five to six years, we've had an increase in attendance for counselling of about 6 to 7 per cent each year," he said.

Headspace manager Wayne Frost says the waiting time should ideally be "as little as possible". ( ABC News: Manika Dadson )

Waiting lists to see counsellors had pushed out to between seven and eight weeks.

Headspace has also had to stop its immediate counselling service for walk-ins because many seeking help were having to wait a long time to be seen.

"The ideal wait time would be as little as possible," Mr Frost said.

"[But] essentially we're working with probably three times as many people as we started out with 10 years ago, but with the same balance sheet."

The Federal Government has announced millions of dollars in additional funding for headspace, including $3.5 million over four years to upgrade the Devonport headspace service and set up a new one in Burnie.

"Unfortunately, although there have been a lot of funding announcements around headspace and we're hoping to see a funding increase for our centre here, as yet we don't actually know what that's going to look like," Mr Frost said.

"We don't know how much we'll be allocated or how much longer we're going to have to wait until that happens."

In the meantime, Mr Frost said the organisation was working on innovative solutions, like running brief intervention clinics, to offer support to those on waiting lists.

Calls for more counsellors

Georgia Marlow, 21, is on a group which advises headspace on needs in the community.

Georgia Marlow says there's a need for more youth counsellors "everywhere" not just at headspace. ( ABC News: Manika Dadson )

She said most young people used services like headspace to talk about mental and sexual health issues.

"If you can't open up to your family or friends it's a good place to be able to go and have someone there for you," Ms Marlow said.

She knows of one young girl who asked for help from headspace last December but was not seen until February.

"She said in the end it was worth waiting, but two months was a little bit too long," Ms Marlow said.

"I would love to see more counsellors, not just with headspace but everywhere."

A Tasmanian coroner is currently investigating the 2017 suspected suicide of 16-year-old Liam Mead two days after being released from a private Melbourne clinic.

In 2015, coroner Olivia McTaggart called for an overhaul of services for troubled youth after investigating six suicides.

'Brought to my knees'

Tasmania is currently the only state in Australia without a dedicated youth mental health facility.

The State Government plans to open two adolescent mental health beds for extreme cases at the LGH later this year and at the Royal Hobart Hospital mid-next year.

Dr Lethborg said taking young family members to the LGH emergency department was sometimes the only option. ( ABC News: Manika Dadson )

It is still determining how many other beds within the hospital's children's wards will be used for mental health patients, but it is likely other new beds will be multi-use.

Dr Lethborg said headspace delays and the fact there was currently no dedicated mental health unit was forcing some family members into the private system.

"We have two family members at the moment who are seeing one of the private psychiatrists - who is fantastic - here in Launceston and it costs almost $500 an hour every time they go there," Dr Lethborg said.

"My concern is for those people who don't have those resources and also for kids that urgently need help now.

"The experience of trying to get adequate professional help has brought me to my knees at times and made what has been an extremely difficult time in our family's life so much more difficult than it needed to be."

Apart from headspace, the only other mental health support services for northern Tasmanian youth are through schools and GPs.

The State Government also operates Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services for Children (CAMHS) for those 18 and under, but they must have a referral to access the service.

Health Minister Michael Ferguson said the Education Department had been given $1.6 million over four years to student wellbeing.

Headspace's national head office has been contacted for comment.