Transforming youth mental health services in a large urban centre: ACCESS Open Minds Edmonton

Abstract

AimThis paper outlines the transformation of youth mental health services in Edmonton, Alberta, a large city in Western Canada. We describe the processes and challenges involved in restructuring how services and care are delivered to youth (11‐25 years old) with mental health needs based on the objectives of the pan‐Canadian ACCESS Open Minds network.MethodsWe provide a narrative review of how youth mental health services have developed since our engagement with the ACCESS Open Minds initiative, based on its five central objectives of early identification, rapid access, appropriate care, continuity of care, and youth and family engagement.ResultsBuilding on an initial community mapping exercise, a service network has been developed; teams that were previously age‐oriented have been integrated together to seamlessly cover the age 11 to 25 range; early identification has thus far focused on high‐school populations; and an actual drop‐in space facilitates rapid access and linkages to appropriate care within the 30‐day benchmark.ConclusionsInitial aspects of the transformation have relied on restructuring and partnerships that have generated early successes. However, further transformation over the longer term will depend on data demonstrating how this has impacted clinical outcomes and service utilization. Ultimately, sustainability in a large urban centre will likely involve scaling up to a network of similar services to cover the entire population of the city.

Introducing a single point of access (SPA) to child and adolescent mental health services in England: a mixed-methods observational study

“…It identified the following features of a SPA: a) a single point of contact for a range of universal services covering advice, consultation, assessment and onward referral; b) early risk assessment; c) prompt decisionmaking about which team can best meet the child/young person's needs; and d) the ability for young people and parents to self-refer [23]. These goals align with changes that have been identified to improve access in Canada, Australia, Ireland and the US [25][26][27][28]. For example, the changes follow models of improving provision of mental health care by altering provider behaviour and in this model, the provider becomes the mental health service itself, and so brings mental health expertise closer to young people's initial point of contact in the hope that this will improve the quality of care decisions [14].…”

Can We Build ‘Somewhere That You Want to Go’? Conducting Collaborative Mental Health Service Design with New Zealand’s Young People

“…A number of services have emerged around the world with the intention of filling this gap for youth specific care in accordance with some or all of these principles [ 23 ]. These include Australia’s headspace [ 37 ]; Jigsaw, in Ireland [ 5 ]; Maison des Adolescents, in France [ 38 ], Youth Can IMPACT and ACCESS Open Minds, in Canada [ 39 , 40 ]; and other programs in The Netherlands [ 41 ]; the United Kingdom [ 42 , 43 ]; Ireland; and Canada [ 23 ]. New Zealand currently has Youth One Stop Shops, a youth-specific integrated health care service with numerous locations.…”

How does reorganisation in child and adolescent mental health services affect access to services? An observational study of two services in England

“…The rising number of young people presenting with mental health needs is propelling services, across a number of nations, to introduce broad systemic changes. Making child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) more accessible to young people is driving many changes taking place in England, which have been mirrored in countries including Canada, Australia, the US and Ireland [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Access to services for children and adolescents include a number of different factors, including: knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about mental health problems and treatment held by both young people and their parents; where these services are geographically located; how they can be approached; and once approached whether they have the resources to address any identified need [9].…”