How 'headspace' Turned a Record Year of Career Mentoring Into Real Jobs Without Losing the Human Touch
with Michelle Barley, Debra McFall, Peter Savat and Linh Nguyen
with Michelle Barley, Debra McFall, Peter Savat and Linh Nguyen
headspace is Australia’s national youth mental health foundation, supporting more than 175 communities in accessing vital support services. Recognising the critical link between mental health and wellbeing and meaningful work or study, headspace launched its fully digital Career Mentoring Program — the only one of its kind in Australia. With Mentorloop powering the program, headspace has scaled safe, inclusive, and impactful mentoring relationships that give young people clarity, confidence, and career direction, while building a nationwide community of skilled, empathetic mentors.
The headspace Career Mentoring Program is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.
headspace is Australia’s national youth mental health foundation, supporting people aged 12–25 — along with their families and communities — through a network of 170+ centres nationwide and a wide range of online services.
In 2017, headspace piloted its Career Mentoring Program to help young people bridge the gap between education and employment. Today, it’s the only fully digital, youth-aligned career mentoring program in Australia, designed to support work, study, and mental health simultaneously.
There are so many stories from this year that capture what the program does at its best. Aaron worked with his mentor to prepare for his top goal—a graduate role with a federal government agency—and when he received the verbal offer, the next session became a celebration of both the outcome and the confidence he built to get there. Faye landed her first goal, a retail role, and used that momentum to set three new goals for her future. Each story shows the same pattern: mentoring helps a young person reach an immediate milestone, then helps them see that milestone as a beginning rather than an ending.
"When young people are supported to pursue meaningful employment or education, they gain connection, purpose, hope, and structure — all key protective factors for mental wellbeing."
– Michelle Barley, Service Lead, headspace Career Mentoring
The need was never just for more career information. Young people needed a trusted person who could help them translate aspiration into action. When headspace piloted its Career Mentoring Program in 2017, roughly 1 in 3 young people aged 17–25 accessing headspace centres were not engaged in work or study. That figure has improved over time, but the pressures facing young Australians haven’t eased. headspace’s 2025 National Youth Mental Health survey found the cost of living as the top concern for young people, with future job opportunities and housing affordability close behind, and worry about the future rising since 2022. Confidence in achieving future goals remains fragile — particularly for 18–25-year-olds.
The same survey found employment and study play an outsized role in wellbeing: more than half of young people say their study situation positively affects their mental health, and nearly half say the same of employment. For a young person already navigating financial strain and mental health challenges, the gap between wanting a career and knowing how to get one can feel especially wide. Rather than tell young people what path to take, headspace set out to connect them with volunteer mentors who could listen, share lived professional experience, and help turn goals into achievable next steps — nationally, regardless of postcode.
Before Mentorloop, the program ran on Qualtrix, Asana, SharePoint, email, and hundreds of individually stored PDF profiles. Matching meant repeated back-and-forth communication, progress was hard to see, and follow-up depended on manual reminders and separate forms.
Since moving to Mentorloop in July 2024, participants have one place to communicate, meet, set goals, record notes, and access resources — while headspace’s team can see key engagement signals like session scheduling and communication trends without accessing the private content of conversations. That balance of privacy and visibility means the team can spot disengagement early, celebrate progress, and step in with support before momentum is lost.
Over the past 12 months, headspace introduced single sign-on across Mentorloop, Rosterfy, SharePoint, its learning management system, and the headspace mentor form — creating one seamless login for participants and volunteers. Together, these changes have cut administration time by more than 30%, freeing the team to spend more time on the work technology can’t replace: building relationships, making thoughtful matches, strengthening safeguarding, and coaching pairs through challenges and milestones.
FY25–26 was headspace’s biggest year yet for mentoring relationships and engagement:
Zooming out, Mentorloop’s August 2026 review recorded 575 participants and 2,162 completed meetings across every state and territory since the program moved onto the platform in July 2024 — the cumulative reach behind this year’s record-setting numbers.
Every mentor completes self-paced training — including child safety and LGBTQIA+ inclusive practice modules — before a full day of live training covering effective mentoring skills, youth mental health, safeguarding, and how to have supportive conversations with young people facing barriers to work or study. Many mentors say the experience has changed how they lead teams and advocate for psychologically safer workplaces — a ripple effect that reaches well past the mentoring relationship itself.
As one mentee put it:
"Without your expertise and support, I don’t think I would have had nearly the same success with applying for graduate programs. Your advice helped me have the confidence and tips to give my best performance.”
"Mentorloop hasn’t just improved our workflow, it’s elevated the entire experience for participants — delivering a more connected, responsive, and impactful program."
Mentorloop provides the infrastructure headspace needed to scale and strengthen their mentoring program:
"Mentorloop hasn’t just helped us grow — it’s helped us grow smarter, faster, and with greater impact."
– Peter Savat, Project Officer, headspace Career Mentoring
headspace’s focus now is creating more ways to benefit from mentoring — not diluting the depth of what already works. The six-month, one-to-one relationship remains the heart of the program, but the team is building a more flexible mentoring ecosystem around it, including one-off industry conversations for young people who want focused insight into a role or sector without committing to a longer relationship. The guiding principle: different needs call for different doors into mentoring. A young person might start with a single industry conversation, move into a sustained one-to-one match, and later return as a mentor themselves.
You too can get involved:
With Mentorloop, headspace has built Australia’s first national, clinically safe, fully digital career mentoring program for young people. By connecting education, employment, and mental wellbeing, the program is not just helping participants find jobs — it’s transforming lives and strengthening communities.
If you’d like to get involved, headspace is looking for both mentees and mentors to join.
📌 Ready to create a mentoring program that transforms futures?
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“By intentionally matching young people with carefully selected, mental health–informed career mentors, we create safe, trusted mentoring relationships that turn aspiration into action and possibility into opportunity.”
– headspace Career Mentoring Team
What Role Does Equity and Equality Play in Your Mentoring Program?
The right mentoring program should level the playing field to empower entire cohorts of people: workplaces, member associations, social groups and educational institutions. Equality should be a cherished value so that every individual can thrive—whoever they are, whatever their background, however they worship or whomever they love. But we can’t arrive at equality without it’s often forgotten partner, equity.
What does a Mentoring Program Coordinator do?
Being a Mentoring Program Coordinator is an incredibly rewarding experience that positively impacts the lives of many. And while mentoring programs don’t fully run themselves (even though Mentorloop can do a great deal of the heavy lifting!), they do require a point of contact that can steer the program in the right direction for the organisation that is running one.
Building Quality Feedback Into Mentoring Relationships
This is Part 8 of our 10-part series on the 10 Key Qualities and Habits of a Highly Effective Mentor.
In this post, we’ll look at how mentors can successfully build quality feedback into their mentoring. Quality feedback is priceless because it clarifies expectations, helps people learn from their mistakes, and builds confidence. It also allows mentees to more effectively take what their mentors say and turn it into action.
