Systemic conversations across children and young people ’s mental health services: a case study

Journal of Public Mental Health,Volume 18, Issue 2, Page 102-111, June 2019. Purpose Improving and transforming children and young people ’s (CYP) mental health (MH) services is increasing in importance. Such systems, however, are often delivered across providers and commissioned in different ways which can lead to fragmentation and complexity, ultimately impacting negatively on how young people access services. With increased deman d, this means that services are more likely to operate in silos when indeed they should be better integrated. Developing systemic interventions for service leaders and commissioners may support improved integration. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach Systemic issues across a CYP MH system were assessed and formulated. As a result, using systemic theory, appreciative inquiry and organisational change theories, a “systemic conversation” intervention was developed and delivered to senior leaders and commissioners of this system. This intervention comprised thr ee workshop style sessions with numerous tasks. Findings Qualitative feedback and scores in the improvement of important elements that the conversations targeted were collected and examined descriptively. Participants rated their perceived improvement in relationships, transparency, integration, h elpfulness and shared vision for future development. Practical implications In transforming CYP MH services, this paper considers how the authors can intervene...
Source: Journal of Public Mental Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research