Across the system, the pressures look different but are just as challenging.
Having worked in hospital, primary care, and community and prison settings, senior counsellor Roxanne Koh said that demand for mental health care services has risen sharply in recent years.
She is a senior counsellor at Filos Community Services, a community-based social service agency that provides subsidised mental health support outside the hospital system. She also runs her own private practice.
In community care, clients often present with multiple, overlapping issues, from mental health conditions to caregiving stress, financial difficulties and social isolation.
These require not just counselling, but coordination with families, social services and healthcare providers, Ms Koh said.
“In hospital and community mental health settings where I have worked, counsellors rarely do just counselling.”
