Best Men’s Mental Health Support Service 2026 Across Australia, countless men are living their lives impacted by mental health conditions, disabilities, relationship breakdowns, loss, estrangement, and social isolation. These conditions can lead to negative feelings of helplessness, social withdrawal, emotional instability, aggressiveness, or violence, which can in turn harm those around them. EveryMan Australia provides specialist support to men and their partners, children, and families living in the ACT who have high and complex support needs. We found out more from CEO Greg Alridge below. EveryMan Australia was first formed in 1992, beginning as a twice-weekly drop-in space located at St John’s church in Reid, Canberra. Initially operating under the name of Murringu, the organisation provided men with access to support and advice from volunteers leading weekly group meetings and later expanded into a small counselling service. It aimed to provide men with a solid support network and effective counselling, allowing them to meet likeminded individuals and explore their personal challenges. In 1999, Murringu had grown to stand as a small community service provider with a dedicated team of case managers and counsellors. It rebranded to Canberra Men’s Centre and enhanced its services to cater for men with a broader range of issues. With an expanded staff and greater capabilities, the organisation was afforded the flexibility to focus more strongly on working with men who live with significant life challenges. Flashforward to 2015, and EveryMan Australia was born. The team have established strong roots in the ACT community – as well as the wider NSW – and are now stepping to the plate as thought leaders advocating and educating the nation on contemporary men’s issues. Across its evolution, the organisation has retained its core values of accountability, compassion, courage, commitment, integrity, and persistence, allowing these qualities to guide its growth and daily operations. EveryMan offers a comprehensive suite of services designed to support its clients through whatever challenges they are facing. These solutions span counselling; case management; crisis and transitional accommodation support; practical help with daily living; violence prevention and behaviour change programmes; and a Partner Advocacy and Support team that works closely with families, partners, former partners, and referrers of those who are subjected to domestic and family violence to ensure safety, stability, and coordinated care. Many of the men who work with EveryMan experience overlapping challenges, including chronic mental health conditions, trauma histories, cognitive or neurodevelopmental conditions, homelessness or extreme housing instability, justice involvement, long-term isolation, and family violence, as victimsurvivors or as men who use harm and are seeking change. It has built a reputation for consistently showing up for these men when needed, in coordinated partnership with other organisations and referrers. In particular, EveryMan supports the men that most services struggle to hold space for. This includes those with complex behaviours, risks, or histories that would exclude them from other ACT community services, as well as men who have been turned away from support because their needs are considered too complex or outside of scope. In this respect, EveryMan operates in the underserved spaces, where gaps between systems can have truly life-altering consequences. “For our clients, relationships matter more than programmes,” Greg told us. “Many have experienced services that end too quickly, or systems that decline them due to complexity. We see how quickly things can deteriorate when mental health, housing, and justice systems don’t align, and how often a man and subsequently his family will only receive support at the point of crisis, including police attendance, eviction, relationship breakdown, or hospital admission. Our commitment to walking alongside someone for as long as needed is often what prevents crisis, harm, or homelessness from escalating.” Men across Australia are presenting with more complex, intersecting needs, and they are accessing support later than ever before. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that one in five Australian men experience a mental health disorder in any given year, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that more than 60% of men experiencing high psychological distress are not receiving professional help. This gap in treatment is further pronounced for men facing compounding issues such as trauma, cognitive disability, justice involvement or unstable housing. Furthermore, housing and mental health pressures are converging, which is directly shaping EveryMan’s work. According to the AIHW, almost half of specialist homeless service clients report a current mental health issue, and men with diagnosed mental health conditions are significantly more likely to experience homelessness. In the ACT, the shortage of affordable housing and long wait times for public housing have only increased this trend, resulting in more men cycling between temporary accommodation and unsafe housing complexes. “Our frontline teams regularly support clients in severely neglected or unsafe housing complexes,” Greg stated. “While these statistics present a sobering picture, they also highlight the opportunities for EveryMan to create meaningful reform. By strengthening partnerships across ACT health, justice, and housing sectors, and by designing programmes that hold space for those facing complexity rather than excluding it, we can intervene earlier and more efficiently.” The sector is also seeing greater recognition from the government and community of the need for early, behaviour-focused family violence interventions for men who use harm. In the ACT, the AIHW reports that intimate partner violence now accounts for approximately 40% of all assault offenses. These statistics reflect a growing base of men working with EveryMan who also face mental health challenges, trauma, substance use, or housing instability. These are all factors identified by the AIHW as common co-
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