Department of Health

Direct care – child and adolescent

Key messages

  • Clinical services include 13 child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), Orygen Youth Health and a number of youth services statewide.
  • Child and youth mental health services (CYMHS) provide seamless care to those aged 0 to 25 years.

Government-funded clinical services include 13 child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), Orygen Youth Health and an increasing number of youth services statewide.

As part of ongoing reform and service improvements, CAMHS and adult mental health services are working together to deliver a new response for children and young people aged 0 to 25 years – child and youth mental health services (CYMHS) – to provide seamless care across this important age range.

Child and youth mental health services

CYMHS are specialist services that provide direct mental healthcare for children and young people via:

  • a single triage linked to assessment services
  • mobile multidisciplinary teams providing intensive community-based crisis response and home treatment over extended hours
  • mobile case management services for young people with complex needs who are difficult to engage in clinical-based care and/or are living in out-of-home care
  • psychosocial case management and therapeutic individual and family services
  • specialist disorder-specific services for young people with personality disorders, mood disorders and psychoses
  • comorbidity clinics, particularly for young people with substance abuse and mental health problems
  • peer-support programs for youth customers and their families and carers
  • comprehensive group-based personal, social and vocational recovery programs.

A range of community residential as well as child- and youth-specific acute inpatient programs support early, evidence-based intervention.

For those who cannot be effectively or safely assessed and treated within home and community service settings, subacute and acute bed-based services will be required.

Youth prevention and recovery care

Youth Prevention and Recovery Care (Youth PARC) services are developmentally focussed services tailored to the needs of young people aged 16 to 25 years. They are short-term, sub acute, intervention and recovery focused clinical treatment services based in residential settings.

They are designed to address the needs of a specific target group of young people with significant mental health problems and disorders to enable earlier engagement and intervention in the context of their illness.

The pathways to enter a Y-PARC can be described as step up from the person's place of residence or step down from an acute hospital inpatient admission.

Reviewed 29 May 2015

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