Beyond Blue's call has been backed by experts from the Australian Psychological Society and the Black Dog Institute.
The service, which is already operating in some parts of the country, would effectively be free to clients, as the charge for sessions would be capped at the Medicare rebate. It would allow regional Australians with limited access to clinical professionals a first port of call for mild-to-moderate mental health issues.
Those identified as experiencing issues too severe to be addressed with coaching would be referred to psychologists and psychiatrists.
On Thursday, the national mental health body released figures showing two in three calls to the Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service nationally were coming from Victoria, up from 43 per cent in June.
In the week to Thursday, there was a 21 per cent increase in visits to the organisation's digital coronavirus support site; more than half of those were from Victorians, the highest traffic volume from any state or territory since the pandemic began. During the pandemic, 900,000 people have used Beyond Blue's online support forums.
"Put simply there will never be enough psychologists and psychiatrists to service the mental health and wellbeing needs of all Australians," said Georgie Harman, CEO of Beyond Blue.
"Part of the answer is scaling up the workforce of mental health coaches who provide evidence-based support to the hundreds of thousands of Australians with mild to moderate anxiety and depression."
In July, when Melbourne and Mitchell Shire were back in stage three restrictions to limit the spread of coronavirus, contacts to Beyond Blue about anxiety spiked 50 per cent and contacts about depression doubled.
