About us
Acute hospital care is of course, a vital part of the mental health system. But wherever possible, we want to avoid hospitalising people.
Each person who is hospitalised is a person who has reached a crisis point in their lives. Their condition will have escalated, often unnecessarily, because they didn’t get help when they first needed it. We imagine a mental health system that is less costly – both in dollar amounts, and to the wellbeing of Canberrans. The Mental Health Community Coalition ACT advocates for prevention, early intervention, and recovery. The community is the perfect place to deliver holistic, recovery-focused, person-centred, and human rights-informed care.
We want to make sure that the community organisations that deliver this care are adequately funded, accessible, and easy to navigate to benefit every Canberran.
We advance this aim through our work in mental health policy and advocacy, workforce training, sector coordination, and initiatives to promote the critical role of community services in facilitating recovery and enhancing wellbeing.
We are a not-for-profit organisation funded by the ACT Government. We work closely with Carers ACT and the ACT Mental Health Consumer Network to ensure our work is informed by the needs of consumers and carers.
We are accredited at Certificate Level of the Australian Service Excellence Standards (ASES). We are a Quality Innovation Performance accredited organisation. We are registered as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.



Annual Reports
Read more about our impact, projects and collective advocacy.
Our history
MHCC ACT was established as a peak body for the community-managed mental health sector in the ACT in 2004.