Rose Cuff, CEO and Co-Founder of Satellite Foundation, discusses why it’s time to move beyond passive admiration of young people and toward action to offer support.
In Australia’s mental health conversations, one group remains persistently overlooked: children and young people carrying an invisible backpack – the emotional weight of supporting their families while trying to grow themselves and reach their potential.
While our systems have a majority focus on adults with mental health challenges, it too often leaves behind the young caretakers, including sons, daughters, siblings and gender-diverse youth, quietly holding everything together behind the scenes. These young people are often providing care from a very young age, navigating complex family relationships, experiencing barriers to getting support and can be burdened with responsibilities far beyond their years. These experiences are made more challenging whilst they are lacking recognition, support and even the language to make sense of their experience. The care they provide is in place because there is often no other alternative. It’s time we stop seeing them as collateral and start recognising them as a priority.
We know the mental health of young people in Australia is under increasing pressure. But for those growing up in families impacted by mental health challenges, that pressure is compounded by added layers of responsibility, uncertainty and emotional strain. Having a parent with a mental illness can increase the risk of children also developing mental health problems later in life (Brummelhuis et al., 2022). Meanwhile, 36% of clients attending adult mental health services have children under 18 (Ruud et al., 2019), and when mental health service providers, service users and their carers/family successfully integrate their care and perspectives, widespread benefits flow to all stakeholders. However, mental health services still do not commonly engage with carers or family (Maybery, 2023).
A 2023 report, Young People with Caring Responsibilities: Time for Action, commissioned by the Victorian Department of Health and conducted by the Bouverie Centre at La Trobe University in partnership with Satellite Foundation, reinforces what we have long known: young people with caring responsibilities remain largely invisible to the very systems that should be supporting them.
In interviews, young people who took part in the study reported feeling dismissed by medical professionals, battling their mental health challenges in silence, and living in fear of judgment if they dared to seek help. The report also highlighted research that shows they are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, disrupted schooling and social isolation. Girls and gender-diverse youth are particularly at risk, often taking on caregiving roles from a young age or internalising the chaos around them to preserve the wellbeing of others.
Most young people don’t identify as ‘carers’. It’s simply what they do. And the ongoing stigma around mental illness in families, especially in parenting, keeps their experiences hidden. The 2023 report also revealed a stark gender divide: 56% of the young carers who participated were female, reflecting deeply entrenched social expectations around caregiving and emotional labour.
It’s not straightforward to ask for support. Overall, having a relative with a stigmatising condition such as a mental illness has been found to lead to social exclusion and shame, resulting in much effort by families to conceal their relationship with their relative and/or their relative’s illness.
The young people we meet who find their way to Satellite are overwhelmingly incredible young people who demonstrate strength and compassion. However, their self-compassion ‘muscle’ is almost always underdeveloped. Out there in the world, too often we meet young people’s hardship with praise and saying they are brave, instead of offering support. We commend their resilience. We celebrate their maturity. We describe them as ‘inspiring’. But this narrative of strength and resilience can turn into a dangerous smokescreen that allows systems to stand back and let young people carry the caring role. The appearance of resilience, especially in children and young people, can be deeply misleading. Just because a young person appears strong doesn’t mean they don’t need support.
Australia’s mental health system, as well as other existing mental health programs, are still missing the crucial step of recognising the ripple effects of mental illness on children and young people. Despite growing awareness, too few services ask the most fundamental question: “Who else, especially children or young people, is being impacted here?”
It’s time we stop applauding these young people from a distance and start showing up for them in tangible, systemic ways. Below are some of the key steps Australia’s mental health sector needs to take to bring the young people impacted by family mental health challenges into the fold more effectively:
- Shift to proactive, not reactive, support. We cannot keep waiting for a crisis before offering help. Early intervention programs, like those we run at Satellite Foundation, show that connection through creativity, community and shared stories can mitigate trauma and build protective pathways long before damage becomes entrenched.
- Build more support within the education sector. Schools are often the first place where a young person’s struggles surface. Yet many educators feel ill-equipped to respond. We must invest in professional development so teachers and wellbeing staff can carefully and respectfully identify students navigating family mental health challenges and connect them with the right supports.
- Create culturally safe, youth-led spaces. Girls and gender-diverse youth carry disproportionate care responsibilities and are often sidelined in mainstream mental health narratives. We need inclusive, youth-designed spaces where identity, culture and mental health can coexist. We need spaces that centre peer connection and reject shame.
- Centre youth voices in reform and hold systems accountable. Young people must be meaningfully involved in designing the policies and services that affect them. This means moving beyond the one-off tick-the-box consultation. We need systems in place that not only listen to their insights but also leverage those insights to shape decisions. Anything less is performative.
At Satellite, we believe in the power of connection, creativity and community. But we also believe in accountability, and that’s a responsibility adults, leaders and systems must carry. No young person navigating family mental health challenges should have to do so alone. And none should be expected to shoulder that burden simply because they appear strong enough.
We owe them more than admiration. We owe them action.
Read also: New research shows nature’s role in supporting youth mental health
Rose Cuff
Rose Cuff is the CEO and Co-founder of Satellite Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation in Victoria dedicated to supporting young Australians aged 8–25 who have a family member living with mental health challenges. Rose is also an occupational therapist who has worked in child, adolescent and adult mental health services since 1987. Since 1995, she has focussed entirely on playing her part to support young carers and children, young people and their family members living with family mental health challenges to realise their full potential. Rose has achieved this through direct clinical practice, developing and implementing peer support programs, co-producing a wide range of resources, publishing widely, and conducting training and research.
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