In response to the growing demand from countries seeking to strengthen mental health services for children and young people, including school-based interventions, WHO and partnering governments have launched a multi-country knowledge exchange and mental health systems analysis initiative. The initiative aims to strengthen community-based mental health systems for children and young people. This area has often been neglected globally due to a shortage of child and adolescent mental health providers and training opportunities, limited budgets primarily directed toward adult and specialized services, and a lack of systems data to fully understand the scope of mental health challenges affecting children and adolescents.
Strengthen systems for children and young people’s mental health
This knowledge exchange and systems analysis initiative builds on the recently published WHO–UNICEF Mental Health of Children and Young People: Service Guidance. The guidance outlines how countries can develop context-specific approaches to improve access to quality mental health support by promoting quality care standards and creating networks that link health care, community mental health and cross-sectoral services.
The knowledge exchange brings together stakeholders from Ministries of Health, other relevant government agencies, and WHO at country, regional, and global levels to collaboratively identify gaps, challenges, opportunities, and priority actions for strengthening mental health systems for children and young people. These meetings provide an important platform for cross-learning and collaboration. A central focus is enhancing youth engagement at the country level, recognizing that young people play a vital role in systems strengthening and reform. The latest WHO Atlas data (2024) shows that youth engagement in service planning remains challenging in many countries: fewer than half of national governments collaborate with service users, including the youth. This represents a decrease from 2020 across all regions, with participation even more limited in young people.
As part of the knowledge exchange initiative, WHO is supporting countries to gather data on service availability and systems performance, using a standardized data collection instrument. The Child and Adolescent National Systems Assessment Tool was developed as an adapted version of the WHO-AIMS tool. The tool maps mental health services, policies and systems for children and adolescents at national and district levels; identifies data gaps across health, education; and social service sectors and offers insights into facilities delivering mental health services, by engaging young people and their caregivers to understand care pathways and access barriers.
Initiative outcomes
The projected outcomes of the systems assessment data collection exercise include a national overview of the mental health system for children and adolescents, which will enable policy and service dialogues to inform programming and allocations by national stakeholders. In many countries, the tool facilitates baseline data collection for the first time, providing a broad picture of existing mental health systems for children and adolescents. This serves as a catalyst for reform and supports evidence-based planning and investment in child and adolescent mental health.
This project is supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada, Botnar Foundation and Iconiq. Countries leading Phase I of the initiative include Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Lesotho, Senegal, and Mozambique. A planned Phase II will expand participation to include additional countries from the African region and other regions.
For more information, please contact Chiara Servili (servilic@who.int).