Building a Responsive Mental Health and Addictions System for Emerging Adults

The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) is pleased to release Taking the Next Step Forward: Building a Responsive Mental Health and Addictions System for Emerging Adults, a comprehensive report that details the current state of policies and practices for youth transitioning from child and youth to adult mental health and addictions services.

Prepared by a research team from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and commissioned by the MHCC, this report provides advice and recommendations on how to address the issues youth living with mental health problems and illnesses encounter when transitioning to adulthood. Taking the Next Step Forward offers proposals for advancing better services for emerging adults at the national, provincial/ territorial, and regional levels.

To support this unique population, Taking the Next Step Forward recommends:

  • designating emerging adults as a specific population within the broader field of child and youth mental health;
  • adapting transition policies from existing international and provincial/territorial best practices and evidence-based policies; and,
  • developing new, and enhancing existing, policies and practices on the provincial/ territorial and regional levels to improve service delivery for emerging adults.

On November 2-4 in Ottawa, Ontario, the MHCC is hosting the Consensus Conference on the Mental Health of Emerging Adults: Making Transitions a Priority in Canada, bringing together policy makers, researchers, mental health organizations, clinicians, youth, and their families from across Canada to point the way forward for a more seamless continuum of mental health and addiction services for emerging adults.

For more information visit our website or email us at Consensus2015@mentalhealthcommission.ca.

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