The ARCH Lab collaborated on a recently published paper, titled “Services Addressing Mental Health Needs of Youth in Physical Rehabilitation: Perspectives of Clinicians, Youth and Family Members” in the journal Child: Care, Health and Development.

The study, examining youth with physical disabilities in a rehabilitation setting, aimed to better understand the needs, supports, challenges and potential solutions to optimize rehabilitation services. Authors investigated perspectives of 22 individual youth, family members and clinicians using a qualitative descriptive approach from five rehabilitation centres in a large Canadian city.

Three themes were identified across the three stakeholder groups: (1) available clinical resources for mental health (access to mental health professionals, impact of organizational structures and mandates and continuity of services during transition to adult care); (2) clinician workforce capacity (mental health knowledge, skills and professional development, and therapeutic rapport between clinician and youth); and (3) links and partnerships with key players (improved pathways to access mental health services across programmes and organizations, and family involvement and advocacy).

This study provides insights to barriers for mental health care (such as limited mental health knowledge, tools and professional development and access to specialists within the team, restrictive organizational mandates and disruption of services during the transition to adult care), illustrating important aspects to address.

Clinicians can be better equipped to address mental health in rehabilitation settings via training opportunities and peer and organizational support in addition to establishing links with external partners. Organizations can also ensure adequate staffing and create pathways within and beyond their institutions to deliver well-coordinated mental health services in a more accessible way.