Youth Transitioning to Adulthood: Effects of Different Population Policies in Child and Adult Mental Health Service Systems

Abstract

The transition from adolescence into adulthood is a period of rapid psychosocial development that underlies the acquisition of the skills and capacities to function as adults. For young people with serious mental health (MH) conditions, the movement into adulthood is precarious. Most adolescents with psychiatric disorders continue to have those disorders in young adulthood. Psychiatric disorders during the transition to adulthood, roughly ages 16-30, seriously impede the development of adult role functioning. These ages span those served by state child and adult MH systems. For adolescents in child MH and young adults in adult MH systems, continuity of care and the provision of age-appropriate supports are needed to assist them in their quest for adult functioning. One challenge to the continuity of care across child and adult MH systems may stem from differing population policies. Population policies are those that define a system's eligible or target population. The important questions for transition-aged youth include: Do population policies used in the adult MH system differ from those used in the child MH system? If so, does this restrict access to services for adolescents aging out of the child MH system? This brief describes a study which examined these questions by comparing the population policies of child and adult state MH systems.