"Where do you want to go?": Developing Practice Principles for Inclusive Goal-Based Outcome Monitoring With Youth in Community Mental Health Services

Working with goals is a powerful tool to facilitate shared-decision making and is a foundational element of most youth mental health interventions across the care continuum (school-based, primary care, community mental health). However, lack of best-practice guidance for working with goals means it can become a bureaucratic tick box task instead of a meaningful process for youth. Clinicians working with goals lack resources about how diversity, equity and inclusion need to be considered or how data from goal-based outcomes can support system improvement. Aims: 1) equip clinicians and health system leaders with practice principles for goal-based outcome monitoring informed by youth, carers and research evidence; 2) situate goal-based practice principles within diverse, equitable and inclusive approaches; 3) accelerate knowledge exchange about goal-based outcomes data. Approach: Phase 1: scoping review from a health equity lens will identify and appraise a list of candidate practice principles found in research evidence and grey literature. Phase 2A: virtual roundtables [80 participants] will be held to deliberate over candidate practice principles identified in Phase1. Roundtables will involve youth, carers, clinicians, researchers, policy makers and diversity, equity and inclusion advocates. Phase 2B: in-person consensus meeting with 20-25 key partners to finalize practice principles document, promote networking among team members, and identify future lines of goal-based outcome research. Co-authored open-source articles and audience-specific knowledge products will be co-developed and translated. Team: 12-16 member team including youth, carers, providers, policy makers, researchers and equity-leaders will co-lead all project activities. National and international partners (Mental Health Commission of Canada, National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, Maritime TREATme (European Network) have committed to the project.