Youth Integration Project
Dr Michael Hodgins
Dr Michael Hodgins
Dr Michael Hodgins
Dr Hodgins is a Senior Research Associate at the School of Women’s and Children’s Health at UNSW. His research experience reflects a keen interest in qualitative methods and knowledge translation. He has more than eight years’ experience conducting qualitative research in healthcare, with a specific passion for arts-based and innovative methodologies. This work has included exploring health priorities and knowledge translation in community-based palliative care, knowledge translation in youth health, the delivery of mental health services to rural populations, and the evaluation of health implementation initiatives. He holds a PhD from Western Sydney University, and a Masters in Qualitative Health Research at The University of Sydney.
More than one million young Australians experience mental illness each year, and half of all young people experience a mental health issue before age 25. Nearly half of the overall burden of disease among young people aged 10 to 25 is attributable to mental health challenges, according to the Lancet Psychiatry Commission on Youth Mental Health.
Amid surging demand, there is an opportunity to streamline youth mental health services – to provide a more holistic response and make care more accessible to young people in crisis, so they can get back on track with work, study and relationships at this critical life stage.
About the Project
The Mindgardens Youth Integration Project (YIP) is a research collaboration with headspace National and other partners to explore how to fine-tune the youth mental health system. We think we can extract better value from the system if we integrate young people’s care across mental health, drug and alcohol and related service providers, providing a framework and tools for different organisations to work effectively together.
In the first stage of YIP, Mindgardens researchers reviewed academic and general-audience publications to build a picture of integrated youth mental health care. They examined real-world examples of services for people aged 12-24 years, such as the Australian headspace services, and the Foundry, in British Columbia, Canada, to examine what promotes integration and what stands in the way. (Click below to read the report on this work).
Read the full report
The YIP team conducted extensive consultations with young people aged 12–25, their families, and service providers across NSW to identify structural and systemic barriers and enablers to integration. They also employed journey mapping with young people to chronologically explore their trajectories through the youth mental health system. These findings highlighted the challenges young people and their families face when navigating the system and the barriers to integration faced by service providers, because of the complex and siloed system landscape.
Based on these findings, the team then developed the Youth Service Integration Resource Kit, an online collection of resources for services to assess their current level of integration with other providers in their region and step them through what they need to become more integrated.
The next step is to pilot test the Youth Service Integration Resource Kit with service providers in a variety of communities, and then refine it based on their feedback. We think service integration can transform young people’s mental health care; now we are committed to developing the practical evidence for how it actually works.
To learn more or find out how you can get involved, please reach out via contact@mindgardens.org.au
Funding Sources
- Commonwealth grant funding awarded by the (former) Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care
- headspace National
- NSW Ministry of Health
Other Projects
Learn about other youth navigation and mental health translational research projects.
Semaglutide to reduce metabolic risk in people with psychosis
Youth Integration Project
Community in Motion
no Body left behind
Keeping the Body in Mind(gardens): Resources
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Mindgardens Neuroscience Network acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures, and to Elders past, present and emerging.
We acknowledge the voices of people with lived experience, their carers, families and kinship groups. We recognise the expertise acquired through living with a mental health, drug and alcohol or neurological disorder and acknowledge those who care for people on their recovery journey. We place lived experience at the heart of all that we do.
Brings together the strengths of four founding organisations
