Grant: Operation:eHealth Innov Partnership Program(eHIPP)-Youth &Adolescent Mental Hlth

Over 75% of Canadian youth with mental health problems do not receive the mental health services and supports they need. They face excessive wait times and long, circuitous, and often traumatic pathways to appropriate assessment and care. Increasingly, youth are choosing to seek help on-line. However, these pathways are not well-integrated with the public mental health system. Leveraging Canadian eHealth innovations offers a promising avenue to facilitate young peoples' journeys to care. This project will develop, implement, and evaluate an innovative self-referral strategy to improve direct and rapid access to youth mental health services using online, integrated technologies. The online and self-referral elements aim to empower young people in seeking help for mental health concerns, facilitate their rapid and direct access to youth mental health services, improve the capacity of service providers to efficiently triage and manage referrals, while engaging youth throughout the initial assessment process. The study will be conducted in 6 health service demonstration sites representing diverse geographical, cultural, and socio-economic settings. These sites are participating members of ACCESS Canada, a pan-Canadian, 200-member network of youth, families, service providers, researchers, decision makers, and community partners conducting service transformations to improve access to and quality of youth mental health services. The eHealth Solution will help reduce young people's delay in help-seeking and facilitate pathways to rapid and direct assessment and care through on-line methods popular with youth. Together, these features will contribute to young people receiving the types of friendly, welcoming mental health services and supports they need.