The Availability, Appropriateness, and Integration of Services to Promote Indigenous Australian Youth Wellbeing and Mental Health: Indigenous Youth and Service Provider Perspectives

McCalman, Janya Robyn, Fagan, Ruth, McDonald, Tina, Jose, Semara, Neal, Paul, Blignault, Ilse, Askew, Deborah, and Cadet-James, Yvonne (2023) The Availability, Appropriateness, and Integration of Services to Promote Indigenous Australian Youth Wellbeing and Mental Health: Indigenous Youth and Service Provider Perspectives. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20 (1). 375.

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DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20010375

View at Publisher Website: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010375

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Abstract

Concerns about the complexity, fragmentation and inefficiency of Australia’s current youth mental health service systems have led policy makers to seek improvements through a shift to community-based solutions. However, there is little evidence of how communities can make this shift. This paper examines the efforts of one Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter, respectfully, Indigenous) community—Yarrabah in north Queensland—to develop strategies for mental health and wellbeing service system improvements for school-aged youth (5–18 years). The research was co-designed with Yarrabah’s community-controlled health service and explores the perceptions of Yarrabah youth and service providers. Iterative grounded theory methods were used to collect and analyse data from 32 youth aged 11–24 years and 24 service providers. Youth were reluctant to seek help, and did so only if they felt a sense of safety, trust, relationality and consistency with providers. Young people’s four suggestions for improvement were access to (1) information and awareness about mental health; (2) youth facilities, spaces and activities; (3) safe and available points of contact; and (4) support for recovery from mental illness. Service providers highlighted an appetite for youth-guided community change and recommended five improvement strategies: (1) listening to youth, (2) linking with community members, (3) providing wellbeing promotion programs, (4) intervening early, and (5) advocating to address the determinants of youth mental health. Overall, both groups realised a disjunct between youth need and service provision, but a willingness to work together for systems change. This study demonstrates the importance of community-driven efforts that harness both youth and service providers’ perspectives, and suggests a need for ongoing dialogue as the basis for co-designing and implementing improvements to wellbeing supports and mental health services for Indigenous youth.


Item ID:	78570
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1660-4601
Keywords:	adolescent, co-design, First Nations, service integration, social and emotional wellbeing
Copyright Information:	© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Date Deposited:	25 Oct 2023 03:10
FoR Codes:	45 INDIGENOUS STUDIES > 4504 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing > 450417 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public health and wellbeing @ 50% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4203 Health services and systems > 420313 Mental health services @ 50%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2002 Evaluation of health and support services > 200299 Evaluation of health and support services not elsewhere classified @ 50% 21 INDIGENOUS > 2103 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health > 210303 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health system performance @ 50%
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