Grant: Project Grant

About 25% of youth (ages 12-25) in Canada experience mental health and substance use (MHSU) challenges but accessing services for these concerns is often difficult. Integrated youth services (IYS) are a new initiative in Canada that provide youth with a single access point for MHSU and other services. IYS are now expanding across Canada, but limited evidence exists to understand their impact. The IYS initiative in British Columbia (BC) presents a unique opportunity to study this new model of service delivery. The overall aim of our study is to understand what impact IYS have on youth using MHSU services and their experiences. To do so, we will 1) learn about youth experiences accessing IYS from the perspectives of youth, families/caregivers, and service providers, 2) compare the characteristics of youth who have accessed IYS and youth who have not, and 3) determine the effect of IYS on patterns of service utilization (such as use of mental health services). We will use multiple methods over 5 years to achieve this goal. First, we will use integrated knowledge translation to collaborate with knowledge users, such as youth and service providers, to make sure findings are relevant to them. Next, we will interview youth, families/caregivers, and service providers with experiences in both traditional and IYS settings to understand how their experiences accessing or delivering services for MHSU compare in both settings. Next, we will link data from the BC-IYS initiative with routinely obtained provincial administrative data to understand the characteristics of youth who access IYS and youth who do not. Finally, we will compare youth who have accessed IYS to those who have not to see if IYS are having an impact on patterns of MHSU care, particularly for mental health services like emergency departments and hospital admissions. Our work provides an opportunity to inform and improve the quality of IYS initiatives in Canada.