Overview
In Canada, a quarter of young people will experience a mental health or substance use disorder. Many of them will present to an emergency department as the first point of contact with health services for these concerns. However, emergency departments usually do not have pathways in place to help young people connect with services in their community to get the help they need for mental health and substance use issues.
For the Emergency Department Standards project, the project team will develop a standard that emergency departments can use to direct young people with mental health and substance use concerns to needed youth-centred health services. The team will use a combination of methods during two stages of work to create a draft of the standards and then dialogue with young people, emergency department physicians and staff, community health service providers, and decision makers to refine and finalize the standards.
This study is led by Dr. Skye Barbic (Head Scientist at Foundry and Associate Professor at University of British Columbia).
Funders
This study is funded by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) sponsored by CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA), in partnership with Health Canada.
Resources
- Barbic S, Turuba R, Kestler A, Stacey A, Brasset C, Sutherland D, Lang E, Scheuermeyer F, Dimitropoulos G, Hews-Girard J, Cormier R, Mondoux S, Harper T, Brockmann V. (2025). Towards a quality standard for emergency departments: Improving mental health and substance use care for youth in British Columbia, Canada. Final Emergency Department Standard.