Grant: Project Grant

Making mental health and substance use (MHSU) services more "youth friendly" has been identified as a key priority of our youth engagement team. Studies suggest that in order to improve utilization of MHSU services by youth, they need to be designed and delivered in developmentally appropriate manners, i.e., "youth friendly." Youth emphasize that when services are developmentally appropriate, youth will be more likely to access services, stay in services, and benefit from them. However, there is no way to measure the degree to which they are developmentally appropriate, to help organizations identify strengths and gaps to be addressed to make their services as appropriate and youth friendly as possible. Together with youth as full project partners, we propose to develop an easy-to-use measurement tool that assesses youth friendliness in MHSU settings. We will work with youth to draft the scale, progressively refine it, then test its ability to measure aspects of developmentally appropriate services. Youth with lived experience of MHSU service use will be engaged on the project from grant development (see Collaborators) through to knowledge translation. This study will result in a scientifically validated scale enabling youth-serving organizations to identify gaps they can address to make services more appealing and appropriate to youth. Upon completion, we will disseminate the scale to youth-serving organizations striving to optimize the appropriateness of their service setting to this developmental age range. The resulting scale will support agencies in improving their appropriateness to youth and enable researchers to systematically examine the relationship between youth friendliness and service access, retention and outcomes. This project will also respond to a designated research priority of youth, i.e., supporting the ongoing refinement of service settings to better match their developmental level and service setting preferences.