Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 February 2024
574. Deputy Alan Dillon asked the Minister for Health to provide clarification on when the youth mental health pathfinder project will be implemented; when the Government will place a pathfinder unit on a statutory footing through section 12 of the Public Service Management Act, 1997 and provide budgetary allocations for the implementation of this project. [5655/24]
View answerThe Government and I remain committed to the development of all aspects of mental health services nationally, including those for children and young people.This is reflected by the record allocation of over €1.3 billion secured for mental health in 2024, which includes a wide spectrum of services for young people ranging from prevention and early intervention to clinical programmes or acute in-patient care. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) will receive approximately €146.5 million dedicated funding this year. I announced an additional €10m extra funding at the National Sharing the Vision Mental Health Conference recently to support the clinical programmes and youth mental health. This further highlights my commitment to mental health and the Government’s recognition of mental health as a central component to overall health.In terms of youth mental health service development and improvement, for the first time in the history of the State we now have a dedicated National Office for Youth Mental Health in the HSE. This is a very significant development that I have delivered on and it will improve leadership, operational oversight, and management of all service delivery and improvements. Both a new HSE National Clinical Lead for Child and Youth Mental Health and a new Assistant National Director for Child and Youth Mental Health have recently taken up post. These posts will allow the HSE to focus on the provision of more integrated services for young people, as envisaged under Sharing the Vision and Sláintecare. The cross-governmental Pathfinder team (which commenced its work in 2016) suggested that no one Government actor (department, office or agency) had the required broad policy scope to address all of the policy challenges underpinning the issues around youth mental health in Ireland, including youth mental health promotion, prevention, early intervention and specialist mental health service provision. The original envisioned focus of Pathfinder was to support a whole-system-triage for individual cases, to amend existing processes and systems to incentivise joined-up working, to give existing local structures the capability to progress change in their community, and to introduce a single set of cross-service key performance indicators.Given that these approved areas for action are now seven years old, and in light of policy and service developments to date, a Pathfinder unit is no longer considered the appropriate structure relevant to the current policy, operational, and political setting. Rather, the central ethos underpinning the value of cross-Departmental collaborative working in the area of youth mental health is now being progressed through the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Spotlight initiative under the successor policy to Bright Outcomes Better Future-The National Policy Framework for Children and Young People, 2014-2020.I am assured that the Mental Health Unit will continue to progress priorities under Sharing the Vision workstreams and structures, while additionally utilising Spotlight as a tool to enhance collaborative working, alignment of policy actions, and where possible as a means to overcome potential barriers to policy progression or service improvements. The Mental Health Spotlight Programme will function as an additional support strand to facilitate the progression of policy objectives, identify barriers to policy implementation and service improvement, while at the same time addressing the calls for a dedicated cross-government Unit to coordinate collaboration in a number of key areas of youth mental health across participating departments on a non-statutory basis.I have been advised that the Mental Health Unit will work with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to formally define Spotlight under their National Policy Framework for Children and Young People and to agree and define central stakeholders, and measurable outputs, with associated KPIs across multiple Departments/agencies.Both I and the Department of Health welcomes the opportunity that the development of the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People brings. The overall approach of coordinating a series of Spotlights on cross-sectoral themes that impact the lives of children and young people is an important thematic approach that brings the potential for improving access to services. In this context I know the Mental Health Unit has welcomed the opportunity to place a Spotlight on youth mental health within Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth's Framework. The Mental Health Spotlight will sit beside a Spotlight focusing on Disability Services, and a third Spotlight encompassing the work of the Department of An Taoiseach’s Child Poverty Unit. As currently envisioned, the Mental Health Spotlight initiative will align closely with the Department of Health’s current youth mental health policy objectives and implementation plans under Sharing the Vision. The Spotlight initiative may be seen as an important lever to further current and on-going mental health implementation plans.This integration of accessible, signposted, services, remains to the forefront of all youth mental health service improvements. I look forward to how the work of the Pathfinder project to date can be used to inform the youth mental health Spotlight programme. There is no doubt that issues around youth mental health span many government Departments, and improved coordination in this area is needed. Improving access to youth mental health services for children and their families remains a priority for me, Minister Donnelly, and the Department of Health.
