Concern over youth mental health services

Otago Daily Times

a day ago

Young people with mental health issues have to wait longer for services, and go through the adult system due to a lack of resources, a Dunedin counsellor says.
Mirror Counselling and Treatment director Deb Fraser's concerns are backed up by the Mental Health Commission's System Performance Monitoring Report, which was released yesterday and paints a fairly grim picture of the country's mental health system.
The report also said: "Young people have often been expected to fit into adult services, including inpatient care in adult facilities.
"Young people, whānau and families have told us that this practice can be harmful, can cause a loss of hope and does not uphold the rights of young people."
Young people were also more likely to wait longer for specialist services, the report said.
Ms Fraser said the report served a useful summary, particularly when it came to assessing youth services.
"We still have young people being treated in an adult ward here and although those numbers are small, the evidence says that young people shouldn't be being admitted to an adult facility.
"So that's an ongoing challenge for us in this particular area that we need to be doing something different for that population."
Young people in adult wards could become more distressed when exposed to adults with more complex mental health needs, she said.
"That's why we need more fit-for-purpose youth mental health services.
The mental health system was "congested", which made it difficult for on-the-ground staff.
"I think we need to acknowledge that the workforce is very committed and highly skilled that responds on a daily basis ... ensuring that we are providing as seamless a service as we can so that people don't fall through the gaps."
The report called for staff with more "lived experience"; Ms Fraser pointed towards the increased role of peer support services.
"It's about having a model that is able to assist them in being able to do their best work when they're integrated, so there's good shared responsibility around the care of those young people and their whānau coming into our service."
Mental Health Commission chief executive Karen Osburn said the report pulled together resources from the past two years.
"What this report does is it brings together multiple parts of the mental health and addiction system.
"So we start first with people, so how are people doing? What are the mental health, addiction and wellbeing outcomes for people?"
Ms Osburn said while programmes such as Access and Choice had proved successful in getting people access to interim mental healthcare, there were still significant gaps in the system.
"We also need to address the real workforce challenges that are in specialist services. So how can we streamline some of the pathways and look at the combination of services that give people choice and options but also ensure that the people with the greatest need are receiving that sort of higher level of care and support?"
Other issues flagged in the report were the fact more than 700,000 people in New Zealand had hazardous drinking patterns, and fatal drug overdoses had almost doubled in the past nine years, while suicide rates had shown no significant decrease since 2018, Māori and rangatahi continuing to experience elevated risk.
Ms Osburn said it was important to stay on top of the issues and data, and the sector was waiting for better direction from the government.
"We certainly want to see our progress ... but we're also wanting the collective ownership across the system. "