The first signs of a mental health disorder often appear early in life and are frequently confused with the usual disruptive behaviours of children and adolescents. Unfortunately, this can delay access to needed treatment and services, and allow the illness to disrupt the school performance and life balance of the child and family.

To deal with this issue, the Youth Programs Directorate wishes to review the care path and mental health services it offers to youths in the Outaouais region. In order to carry out this large-scale project, it is partnering with the CISSS de l’Outaouais Research Centre to work closely with researchers from the mental health and psychosocial health research teams. The objective of this initiative is to design and plan a research group on children aged 6 to 18 with a mental health problem, more specifically behavioural problems or suicidal thoughts.

This group will establish a framework involving managers, practitioners, clinicians, families and researchers to produce scientific results upon which the CISSS de l’Outaouais will build to implement sustainable best practices. This framework will serve as an example to demonstrate the relevance of the resulting care path, and will provide a unique asset to the upcoming Outaouais CIUSSS.

Research results will be used to not only define an action plan for the implementation of the new care path, but also determine which practices ought to be maintained or implemented by the CISSS de l’Outaouais.

The results will be used to identify obstacles and facilitators in the implementation of best practices adapted to local and regional realities, and will inform the development of the approach used to implement these practices. Finally, the project will end with the post-implementation evaluation of this new care path and the validation of the initial objectives’ achievement with all concerned parties.