Transitions In Practice: Implementing National Youth Mental Health Transition Standards Across Canada (TIPS)

Continuity of care between youth- and adult-oriented mental health and substance use (MHSU) services is often poorly coordinated and national calls to action have highlighted the need for MHSU services to incorporate evidence-based transition standards into practice. Our team has conducted extensive work in co-developing standards for transitions from youth MHSU services. However, further work is needed to determine how to implement these standards into diverse Canadian practice settings. The aim of this proposal is to improve the uptake of these transition standards nationally through engagement and co-design with youth, caregivers, and care providers in local community care settings across Canada. We will partner with existing Canadian Integrated Youth Services (IYS), leveraging their strong youth engagement councils to co-develop our implementation and evaluation strategy. To accomplish our goal, we will conduct community consultations across Canadian IYS and integrate their feedback into our existing implementation toolkit, using a well-established implementation framework. We will also partner with youth to deliver implementation workshops and co-develop action plans for the uptake of the transition standards. Finally, we will build an interdisciplinary network of Canadian MHSU services focused on the implementation of these standards. Following this project, IYS across Canada will be prepared to implement transition standards in a way that reflects their local contexts, priorities, and resources, thus improving the uptake of these evidence-based standards and the transition experiences of youth receiving care in MHSU settings.