As staffing and services have increased, headspace's Camp St office has struggled to accommodate its growth but in the coming months it will undergo a $450,000 renovation so it can better meet the needs of Ballarat's youth.

From July 4 the headspace centre in Camp Street will be closed, with most services shifted to an interim office in Sebastopol and some to Lucas.

"We initially hoped to move to bigger premises because we have just grown out of our space, but we were unable to find anything within the Ballarat CBD that matched what we were after and within our budget to rent, so we got permission to renovate our Camp Street office and we are really happy with the designs," said headspace Ballarat centre manager Janelle Johnson.

The new design includes three extra rooms large enough to host small groups, a restructure of existing space, and up to 50 extra appointments a week for young people seeking support.

It will also allow more services to operate from the centre.

"We have tripled in size but we've been really cognisant that we don't have a lot of space so we haven't been applying for grants for more staff and we haven't been inviting in-kind services in because we don't have space for them," she said.

Part of the headspace model is that a consortium of local welfare and support services provide one day a week of in-kind support. In Ballarat the consortium consists of Uniting Care, Cafs, BADAC, Catholic Care, Ballarat Community Health and Grampians Health who offer a range of extra services for clients such as parenting support, financial support, dietetics, and a youth lawyer.

"And we haven't had a lot of our mental health MBS (Medicare funded) clinicians invited in because we don't feel we've got space for them so it will be really exciting when we move back in and have that space," Ms Johnson said.

During the next three months headspace will operate out of a building in Vickers Street in Sebastopol, next-door to Ballarat Community Health, which has been remodelled to accommodate headspace's needs.

Ms Johnson said while Sebastopol would not be as convenient as the CBD for some young people, many had welcomed the short-term shift.

"We've had feedback from many young people that it's closer to them, and when we did modelling of where our clients were coming from it landed pretty well at Sebastopol," she said.

IN OTHER NEWS

"There's a bus route that goes straight past and we know it will be difficult for some clients to get there but we are also working out of Lucas in smaller numbers."

Ms Johnson said architects had worked closely with her staff, headspace's national team, Western Victoria Primary Health Network who provided the $450,000 grant to renovate the centre, as well as headspace's youth reference group, community and staff to come up with the final design.

When headspace returns to their newly-renovated Camp Street office the number of appointments they can offer young people will increase from around 250 to more than 300, as well as allowing some staff who have had to work from home or with hybrid arrangements to come back to the office.

Ms Johnson said while the number of young people seeking support had increased since the COVID pandemic, they had also seen a big jump in the number of parents wanting advice on how best to support their adolescent.

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