First thousand days crucial
Focus on early life and help for young adults among ideas for mental health
A focus on the first thousand days of life and extending young adult treatment options until people turn 25 are among proposed mental health and addiction service reforms.
And people with personal experience of mental health distress could help lead, deliver and partner with colleagues to transform the system.
Ministry of Health officials predicted how mental health and addiction services would look in 10 years’ time, and made the suggestions in a new discussion paper.
The mental health and addiction system and service framework (SSF) draft identified ways to potentially improve such services.
One proposed shift involved focusing on the first thousand days of life, with specialist infant and perinatal mental health services.
These services could stand alone, or have specialist expertise integrated into other areas such as child and youth mental health services.
The paper said services for young adults should be developed in line with recent evidence on human growth which recognised that adulthood did not begin until the late 20s.
It suggesting not moving youth to adult services until they were 25.
Another shift involved building peer-led transformation.
That meant people with experience of mental health distress would help lead, deliver and partner with colleagues to transform the system.
“People with lived experience of distress will form the heart of the future system of services,” it added.
University of Auckland psychology professor Ian Lambie said extending youth adult treatments to 25 and focusing on the first thousand days of life were both good ideas.
“As an overarching thing, it’s very good to hear they’re using what the evidence suggests to guide policy.”
He said the frontal lobe of the brain wasn’t fully developed until the mid20s.
“It largely focuses on impulse control, executive function . . . being able to be more considered and think through the consequences of your actions.” Policies which prioritised early intervention were also laudable.
“It’s really clear that we need to have more investment at the early stages of everyone’s life,” Green Party mental health spokeswoman Chloe Swarbrick said.
“Obviously it is really good to see on paper what the pathway looks like,” she said of the SSF. “But there are still some really glaring gaps, particularly around addiction.”
Swarbrick said the paper should also have addressed foetal alcohol syndrome. “That has been languishing with successive governments.”
And she said it was important drug abuse was treated as a health issue.
National’s mental health and suicide prevention spokesman Matt Doocey also welcomed the proposed focus on early childhood.
“We do know there’s a real window of opportunity around the first thousand days,” he said.
“Unfortunately for mental health, we invest more money later in life.”
The draft Ministry of Health paper also highlighted how factors including income, housing, employment and education influenced wellbeing.
It called for all Kiwis to have access to resources and live in environments conducive to mental wellbeing.
The draft is intended to prompt discussion and then be refined.