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The Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing, CHN and the Youth Coalition of the ACT have worked closely together over recent years to understand the needs of the ‘missing middle’ – children and young people with moderate to severe mental health issues who experience difficulties accessing services. This research led to the release of the report ‘Understanding the Missing Middle’. Findings of this report described the need for services across sectors to work collaboratively to address service and system constraints and challenges that contribute to the missing middle. Based on this recommendation, a range of stakeholders across the mental health, education, child, youth and family sectors participated in strategic planning activities to design a Child and Youth Mental Health Services Alliance (the Alliance) in the ACT.
The Alliance provides a structured mechanism for people with lived experience and community, government and private services to identify key priorities, improve communication and collaboration, and support shared decision-making. Three Alliance forums are held each year to facilitate collective strategic discussions, goal setting and prioritisation, which allows stakeholders to progress service system improvements. The Alliance is supported by a youth reference group, a coordinating committee, and relevant mental health executives. It also facilitates the establishment of working groups to progress Alliance priorities. The first Alliance working group, established at the beginning of 2023, supports the collaborative development of 3 upcoming child and youth mental health services in the ACT, including CHN’s headspace Early Psychosis service.
The Alliance promotes trust and respect, and is underpinned by principles of equity, learning, human rights, diversity, inclusion, participation, transparency, and accountability. At its core, the Alliance recognises that the interests of children and young people come first. The Alliance has members from over 40 different local organisations and groups, who all share the aim of delivering more coordinated and integrated support for Capital Health Network, ACT PHN Annual Report 2022/23 47 children and young people. The establishment and leadership of the Alliance through a partnership between the Office for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Capital Health Network and the Youth Coalition of the ACT is an example of effective collaboration across community and government, with a recognition that change is best achieved through collaborative processes.
