Make sure transition-age youth have access to needed mental health care

Abstract

“Transition-age youth” sounds like fancy talk for coming-of-age years. In fact, it's a time when youth are particularly vulnerable to stress, and also when serious mental health problems can derail their move into adulthood. The years of being home and protected by parents, perhaps, are over. College, jobs, and concerns about the “real world” can take over. Furthermore, the inner world — depression, anxiety, suicide, substance use, bullying, romance, even possible first-episode psychosis which takes place during these years, can emerge. Medically, the pediatrician is probably leaving the child's medical team, and new providers — adult providers — will be taking over. These providers don't know the child the way the pediatrician does.