Facilitating the implementation of quality standards for youth and family engagement within the community child and youth mental health and substance use health system.

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the mental health and well-being of many young people living in Canada, underscoring the need to address long-standing gaps in the delivery of mental health and substance use health services across the country. Quality standards can help ensure consistent, high-quality care, but they must be supported by people and resources to change the delivery of healthcare services in an impactful way. The meaningful engagement of young people and families in the healthcare sector can positively impact service experiences and outcomes and is considered an essential component of quality standard development and implementation. Since 2020, the community child and youth mental health and substance use health sector in Ontario has been supported by two standards for meaningful youth and family engagement. Evaluation of early efforts to implement these standards points to difficulties in measuring the standards, understanding agency-specific and practical approaches to implementation, and sustaining implementation without significant, specialized support. The proposed project will build on these early efforts by examining (a) the barriers and facilitators to the uptake of youth and family engagement standards, (b) the sector's vision of successfully implementing these standards, and (c) possible intervention strategies to support adoption and use of the standards. Findings will inform practices in effective youth and family engagement, and implementation of standards across Canada. The work will also contribute to the development and implementation strategies for new pan-Canadian standards for mental health and substance use health services for children, youth and families, ultimately supporting long-term transformation and better health outcomes among young people in Canada.