The design, testing and scaling up of youth mental health service reforms in Australia over the past decade provides valuable lessons for the future of health reform in Australia. In particular, the initial successes of headspace in improving access, service satisfaction and outcomes for young people with emerging mental illnesses has established a platform for reorienting mental health care towards earlier, more holistic care that is increasingly being delivered in multi-disciplinary enhanced primary care settings. The influence is obvious of the headspace model on the broader restructure of mental health care announced by the Prime Minister and Minister for Health on 26 November 2015