The pandemic has driven a surge in the number of people seeking mental health support with one in three psychologists across Australia reporting they are unable to take on new clients and the figure likely higher in regional areas.

Record numbers of young people in Ballarat are now seeking mental health support and the professional workforce is not available in the numbers needed to help.

"In Ballarat we have some amazing workers in our industry but there are only so many hours in a day," said Ballarat headspace general manager Janelle Johnson.

"There's a lot of services providing amazing mental health support in the short term, or in early intervention of mild to moderate cases, but for young people and families requiring longer term more specialist ongoing (mental health) treatment it's very difficult to find in our community."

"Everyone that supports people with their mental health are fabulous people and in the industry because we want to be, but there are not enough of us."

A recent survey by the Australian Psychological Association found psychologists were "over run" with one in three unable to see new clients - up from one in five in March last year.

The survey found the pandemic changed the issues impacting Australians, with almost a third of psychologists noticing a change in who was coming to them for support with more children, young people and men seeking help, with anxiety, stress, trauma and depression the most reported conditions that psychologists have seen since the start of the pandemic.

"During the pandemic young people and their families were really just trying to get by," Ms Johnson said.

"Coming out of the pandemic young people are still processing a mass trauma that everyone experienced ... and people don't just go back to normal after that. There's some time they need to give themselves to re-experience what the new normal is and can be.

"We have seen a number of young people coming in and really wanting to work on trying to manage their worries or sadness from the change in things that have happened for them."

headspace is also providing individual and group support for parents to be able to support their young people.

"Young people are really wanting to manage their mental health like they manage their physical health and to be the best they can. We are still seeing young people coming in distress and having difficulty with that transition," Ms Johnson said.

"Now that we are coming back to normal people are reaching out for help and ... acknowledging they need that support but the difficulty of that now is there are not enough workers in our community."

Research published from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Paediatric Study Group found a marked increase in pediatric intensive care unit admissions following deliberate self-harm during COVID-19 lockdowns and social restrictions.

Of the 813 study patients aged 12 to 17 analysed between January 2015 and June 2021, 230 were admitted during the first 15 months of the pandemic from April 2020 to June 2021.

"At the onset of the pandemic, monthly incidence of (deliberate self-harm) ICU admissions per million children and adolescents increased from 7.2 admissions in March 2020 to a peak of 11.4 admissions by August 2020," said the authors.

This was considered a "significant" disruption to regular pre-pandemic trends and only the tip of the iceberg because it was only ICU figures.

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University of Melbourne's Youth Mental Health Professor Patrick McGorry said this "sensitive period of life" depended on a stable family environment, engagement with peer groups and progress at school all of which were disrupted.

"These impacted much more heavily on young people than any other age group, with harmful disruption of the protective scaffolding supporting mental health and development," he said

"You simply cannot continue to force people to stay home indefinitely and in the case of young people, stay away from schools and their social networks."

Grampians Health - Ballarat executive director acute operations Ben Kelly said while there was no noticable increase in adolescent self harm through Ballarat's emergency department during the pandemic there was concern about disorders such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

For crisis support, phone Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.

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