Vision Document: Mental Health for Young Children Suffering Issues

This report presents a vision document focused on addressing mental health challenges in young children, evaluating the shortcomings of existing systems like Headspace, which have shown limited improvement and inconsistencies in treatment outcomes. The document highlights issues such as the need for young people to repeat their stories to multiple professionals, and the lack of culturally sensitive services. The proposed solution is the implementation of a New Access system, which offers individualized care, flexible service delivery through face-to-face, phone, or video calls, and a single point of contact for clients. The New Access model aims to reach traditionally hard-to-reach clients, providing free sessions, eliminating the need for referrals, and offering tailored recovery plans developed by trained professionals. The benefits of this approach include integrated treatment models, enhanced primary care, and the involvement of parents in the treatment process. The document emphasizes that the new system will provide an environment where young children can discuss their mental health concerns openly and receive comprehensive support, leading to better outcomes and improved mental well-being. The report includes references to support the claims and recommendations made.

Running head: VISION DOCUMENT 1
Vision Document for young children suffering from mental issues

VISION DOCUMENT 2
Problems in existing system
As suggested by Olfson, Druss & Marcus (2015), mental health problems, such as
depression and anxiety are among the most common and disabling health conditions worldwide.
Headspace is an Australian non-profit organization focused on youth mental health by the
Australian government in 2006. It delivers support services to young people aged from 12 to 25
years to reduce the impact of stress, anxiety, depression and drug use to improve their mental
condition with effective treatments according to their conditions (Headspace, 2019). But in the
recent times, this flagship youth mental health program is unable to cater to the needs of its
clients a not contributing to their wellbeing. One of the issues identified are significantly lesser
improvement in the mental conditions of young people. The youth are reported to be deteriorated
during the treatment process. Also the cost per visit varied widely between the Headspace
centers. Many reports of suggested Headspace has only achieved small improvements in the
mental health of their clients suffering from depression, anxiety and their bipolar disorders.
Although the organization has substantially reduced suicidal thoughts and self-harm of their
clients but it has also been reported that the services are not meeting the needs of everyone. In
addition to that there is inconsistency in improvement of mental and physic health of clients
using drug and alcohol. Another issue identified is that Headspace is not meeting the needs of
culturally diverse young people. Young people with mental illness were mostly meeting multiple
professionals before getting the actual help which included meeting a Headspace caseworker,
then a general practitioner and then a medical practitioner. This can possibly be an issue for
young people to share their stories multiple times to multiple people in the Headspace Centre
which can lead the client to clam up and not share their stories.

VISION DOCUMENT 3
New Access system capabilities
New Access is a mental health intervention which initially targeted youth aged 17 to 25,
and now is expanding people of the age 12 and Indigenous youth. New Access has shown
incredible results in treating mild to moderate depression and anxiety among the youth (Lives
Lived Well, 2019). The program has been running successful in its 3 trial sites in Australia
serving more than 3500 people. Although the program offers up to 6 free sessions for people
experiencing depression and anxiety, they were treated and recovered at the end of their sessions.
The new system should be capable of:
 Reaching out to clients who are traditionally difficult to reach for mental health
programs.
 The intervention will provide young people with choice to select the services and how
they are going to be delivered to them.
 Face to face interviews, over the phone, or over video calls will be personalized options
for young people of the age 12.
 To provide flexibility to clients of discussing their issues to a single case worker who will
assist them and be their single point of contact.
 Individualized approach comprehensive diagnosis the client's mental and physical
condition and accordingly start their intervention.
 New Access will help them open about their stories for the very first time without
reaching out to multiple people for help.
 Young people of the age 12 will be provided with enhanced primary care service which
will be free for them.
 No referral will be needed.
 Professionals trained in understanding cognitive behaviors will be provided and develop
tailored recovery plans for each person.

VISION DOCUMENT 4
Benefits of New Access
Mental health issues are real, common and often treatable. In the current scenario it is
estimated that approximately 1 out of 5 young children face difficulty in opening of the different
people about their condition. Therefore, New Access system will offer integrated treatment
model that combines medication therapy, counselling and help the young children openly discuss
about their mental conditions.
 Since the focus of the intervention provided individualized attention rather than a chain
of people making the young child repeating their issues to multiple case workers and
medical practitioners.
 New Access will be beneficial for young children to select their desired locations and
mode of interaction and how they are going to be delivered.
 As their stories will be recorded by a single case worker, it will be easier to analyze their
condition from the very beginning and accordingly provide sessions of therapies as per
their and physical condition.
 The flexibility of selecting a desired place for discussing their issues help to analyze the
case better.
 Since the intervention will focus more on young people of the age 12, they will be
provided with enhanced primary care service and an individualized attention which may
include sittings with their parents also.
 The parents can also be a part of the interview process to know about the condition of
their children.
 There are no reference systems, clients can directly contact and seek for help at any time
they require.
 The availability of trained professionals will benefit the young children and provide
suggestive recovery plan for each young child.

VISION DOCUMENT 5
References
Headspace. (2019). Who we are. Retrieved from https://headspace.org.au/about-us/who-we-are/
Lives Lived Well. (2019). NewAccess: Free mental health coaching for Darling Downs. Retried
from https://www.liveslivedwell.org.au/mental-health-newaccess/