Child, Adolescent & Youth Mental Health

Mental disorders are the single most common cause of disability in young people. The majority of lifetime mental disorder arises before adulthood. If left untreated, mental disorders impede all aspects of health, including emotional well-being and social development, and leave young people feeling socially isolated, stigmatised, and unable to optimise their social, vocational, and interpersonal contributions to society. Mental disorder during childhood and adolescence also results in subsequent impacts in adulthood including increased risk of adult mental disorder. 

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Some of the proposed work will focus on groups of children, adolescents and young people are at higher risk of mental disorder and poor wellbeing and may include: 

1. Promote implementation of effective interventions to detect and treat mental disorder at an early stage in childhood and adolescence given most lifetime mental disorder arises before adulthood 

2. Implement effective interventions to treat and prevent child/parental mental disorder during pregnancy and the perinatal period 

3. Implement effective parenting interventions which both treat behavioural disorders, prevent mental disorder and promote child/parental wellbeing 

4. Implement effective pre-school and school-based interventions to treat mental disorder early, prevent mental disorder and promote mental wellbeing 

5. Promote early detection for psychosis and developing crisis intervention centres for adolescents 

6. Workplace screening for early detection of mental disorder among the young workers and promoting wellbeing in the workplace 

7. Conduct a series of educational multidisciplinary programmes highlighting the challenges and opportunities for digital child and adolescent psychiatry services