Sharing the Vision, A Mental Health Policy for Everyone (StV) is Ireland’s national mental health policy. It aims to enhance the provision of mental health services and supports across a broad continuum from mental health promotion to specialist mental health delivery during the period from 2020 to 2030. The vision embodied in StV is to create a mental health system that addresses the needs of the population through enhancing the inclusion and recovery of people who have complex mental health difficulties. It promotes a vision where service providers should work in partnership with service users and their families to facilitate recovery and reintegration through the provision of accessible, comprehensive, and community-based mental health services.

Governance and oversight of the progress of implementation of the policy is provided through the National Implementation Monitoring Committee (NIMC) supported by a Reference Group of Service Users. A number of specialist groups were formed to address the implementation of the complex recommendations contained in the policy. One of these is the Youth Mental Health Transitions Specialist Group which was established in September 2021 with a focus on implementation of StV. Recommendation 36: Appropriate supports should be provided for on an interim basis to service users transitioning from CAMHS to GAMHS. The age of transition should be moved from 18 to 25, and future supports should reflect this.

The specialist group focused its work into two separate, but interrelated workstreams: 
Workstream 1: Development of an enhanced transitions plan (including implementation plan) to support individuals transitioning from CAMHS to AMHS at 18 years.
Workstream 2: Development of a reconfiguration plan, including prioritised and phased recommended actions, in order to plan for the provision of age-appropriate specialist mental health services up to age 25.

Executive Summary - The recognition of the need for change and improvement in child and adolescent and youth mental health has been the subject of much focus in recent years and especially since the publication of the Look-Back Review into CAMHS in South Kerry (‘Maskey Report’). Since the initiation of this work the need for ongoing and meaningful engagement with all relevant stakeholders has been a core focus for the specialist group. There has been extensive consultation with stakeholders working in and engaged with mental health services to understand the realities, concerns and future visions and hopes of stakeholders, and this has been a key influencer of the recommendations contained in this report. In recognition that young people should be central to the process of transformative change in the child and youth mental health service sector the principle of ‘nothing about us, without us’ is increasingly recognised. Listening to, exploring, and understanding young people’s experiences of accessing mental health services has been a priority throughout the work of the specialist group. 

The specialist group has developed recommendations to enhance, improve and transform child and youth mental health services. It sets out a vision for long-term reconfiguration of how child and youth mental health services are delivered, proposing a single point of access be introduced with a dedicated multi-sector triage function and development of new youth mental health services to serve the ‘missing middle’ whose needs are not met by current mental health services. It also sets out five recommendations that can be implemented to support the long-term vision with themes of ‘Transition’, ‘Shared Care’, ‘Access’, ‘Training’ and ‘Research and Evaluation’. A Youth Mental Health (YMH) model of care is required with governance structures at a national, regional and local level explicitly defined and agreed particularly in light of emerging changing organisational structures in the HSE through the establishment of Regional Health Areas (RHAs). The successful implementation of this transformational YMH service will require the explicit support and commitment of resources and leadership from the Department of Health and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth...