Over the past weeks, our Mental Healthcare Advisory Group (MAG) came together across two sessions, bringing expert clinicians, academics and parents from Ireland, Italy, Denmark, and the Netherlands to ask a fundamental question: what happens when a young person tries to get help and what gets in the way?
Through our Delphi consensus exercise (N=17, spanning 8 countries), we reached strong agreement on the key obstacles facing young people trying to access mental health care:
Country-level discussions brought these statistics to life. In Italy, one member described youth mental health as the “Cinderella of the mental health system” (under-resourced and overlooked). In Ireland, a population surge of ~1 million people over the past decade has placed enormous strain on services. Across Italy and the Netherlands, language and cultural barriers faced by immigrant families were highlighted as major challenge.
Our members were equally aligned on what works:
Running alongside these sessions, we’re continuously developing and refining country-specific pathway maps for each European country in the YOUTHreach project. This is an iterative process; our advisors are helping us understand how young people currently move through mental health systems, so we can identify the best possible places to embed interventions. Every conversation shapes these maps, and every insight brings us closer to meaningful, system-level change.
Members were cautious about digital interventions: recognising their potential while flagging real risks. Young people may be open to digital tools, but they still want to be seen by a human. Any digital solution that lacks interoperability or doesn’t protect user anonymity is likely to fail.
A huge thank you to all our MAG members for their time, expertise, and passion. This work matters and you are making it happen.
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