Grant: Health System Impact Fellowships - PostDoc Central Canada 2 year

The Ontario Centre for excellence in Child and Youth Mental Health is conducting a project to improve clinical and service pathways for mental health services within the community. Specifically, this 2-year mixed methods project aims to use the knowledge gained from the pilot project conducted in 2018 to work along with six regions in Ontario to implement and evaluate a 'Primary Care Provider Mental Health' clinical pathways model. The project aims to address three of the key recommendations from the Centre's policy-ready paper on strengthening the interface between primary care and community-based child and youth mental health services, including: (1) Organizational structures and practices that support inter-provider communication, (2) Development of guidelines and standardized clinical pathways, and (3) Integrating standardized tools in primary care practices. Our team will work alongside primary care and community-based mental health provider partners to support the implementation of new pathways; tailoring pathways to the unique needs of each region and their population and building them into their existing workflow. The project includes 3 phases: (1) Developing tailored clinical pathways through strategic planning and stakeholder engagement; (2) Implementing the pathways through the use of standardized tools adapted to local contexts; and (3) Sustainability, feedback and maintenance of pathways. We will assess the usefulness of standardized tools to improve care, and providers' and families' views on the acceptability, utility and impact of the pathways. This is the first project to facilitate a seamless and timely transition for children and youth identified with a mental health need by their primary care providers to appropriate community-based supports in Ontario. This will lead to reduced wait times and an increase in services provided to youth. Our study will rigorously address requirements for success and inform scalability to other Canadian settings.