The latest national prevalence of mental health disorders in children and adolescents and service use figures are now available from The Second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (Young Minds Matter). The survey was funded by the Department of Health and conducted during 2013-14 by the Telethon Kids Institute in partnership with Roy Morgan Research. The survey involved interviewing parents or carers of 6,310 families with 4-17 year-olds across Australia. The last survey to do this was over 15 years ago (1).

12-month mental disorders were identified using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children – Version 4 (DISC-IV), specifically - major depressive disorder, ADHD, conduct disorder and four anxiety disorders. The survey included a comprehensive set of questions about service use for emotional or behavioural problems in the health and school sectors as well as use of telephone and internet services. Both the first national survey of children and adolescents and the 2007 adult survey of mental health identified low levels of treatment (1,2).

The main aims of the presentation will be to describe the current service use patterns of young people with mental disorders in Australia and the extent to which perceived needs for care were met.

Peer support and peer education play a powerful role in influencing the recovery potential of others. Well Ways MI Recovery was designed as a peer-delivered adult education program, informed by international evidence and lived experience knowledge. It provides opportunities to develop skills and set recovery oriented goals within an environment of shared expertise. Evaluation of MI Recovery has shown statistically significant outcomes for adult participants.

To date there has been limited peer support or peer education available to young people accessing clinical mental health services. Recognising this need, Eastern Health’s Child and Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS), in collaboration with MI Fellowship Victoria, supported two Youth Peer Advisors to be trained as MI Recovery peer facilitators. Together with a clinical coordinator, the youth facilitators adapted program content to engage and support youth participants and have delivered 4 programs with positive initial outcomes.

Aim: To report on the development and integration of youth focused evidence based peer education programs within a clinical setting.
Conclusions: Initial outcomes of the youth focused MI Recovery program are positive and indicate that further development and evaluation of evidence based youth peer education programs will benefit youth participants, youth peer workers and the mental health sector.

Background
In order to promote evidence-based care and the appropriate involvement of consumers in treatment decision making for youth depression1, we developed and evaluated an online decision aid.

Methods
Clients aged 13-25 presenting with mild, mild-moderate and moderate-severe depression: 1) completed baseline measures; 2) used the decision aid with their clinician; 3) completed post-decision aid assessments; and 4) were then followed up at 6-8 weeks post-decision. Outcomes included whether or not the decision was in line with the guidelines, decisional conflict, perceived shared decision making, and satisfaction.

Results
53 client participants have been recruited and 31 have undertaken both assessments. When comparing the intended treatment choice at baseline with the actual decision made, guideline-concordant decisions rose from 71.43% to 100%. There was a significant reduction in decisional conflict scores between baseline (M=35.53, SD=13.93) and after using the decision aid (M=22.23, SD=13.18); t(30)=5.16, p=0.000. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction and perceived shared decision making.

Conclusions
We successfully translated national guidelines for youth depression2 into an online decision aid that clients and clinicians found acceptable and useful. Clients chose a treatment informed by both evidence and personal preferences and values, were less conflicted about their decision, felt involved and were satisfied.

The importance of parenting in the treatment of a person with a mental illness is often overlooked, resulting in poorer outcomes for both parents and children. The Finnish strength-based, empowerment model, Let’s Talk about Children, has been implemented in 12 mental health and family services across Victoria, as part of the Mental Illness Research Fund grant funded by the Victorian Government. The Let’s Talk intervention aims to help make talking about children and parenting issues a natural part of the alliance between parents and their practitioner to improve recovery outcomes for consumer-parents and their families. This paper reports on the preliminary findings from a randomised controlled trial of over 60 consumer-parents pre and post the Let’s Talk intervention in terms of changes in parenting stress and self-efficacy, quality of life and the impact of the intervention on the recovery journey of the consumer-parent. The initial findings are being integrated into the development of the third phase of the randomised control trial, which will be outlined during the presentation. Recommendations for practice will be outlined for other services seeking to implement this evidence based model to better support parents with a mental illness to participate more fully in their parenting role.