Crossing the Age Divide: Cross-Age Collaboration Between Programs Serving Transition-Age Youth

Area of Science:

• Mental Health Services Research
• Social Network Analysis
• Youth Services

Background:

• Transition-age youth (TAY) with serious mental health conditions often fall between child and adult care systems.
• Effective service delivery requires seamless collaboration between child-serving and adult-serving programs.
• Understanding inter-system collaboration is crucial for improving TAY mental health outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify characteristics of programs serving TAY that influence collaboration with child and adult systems.
• To examine factors facilitating or hindering cross-age collaboration in mental health services.
• To understand the role of specialized TAY programs in bridging service gaps.

Main Methods:

• Social network analysis (SNA) was employed to measure collaboration.
• Homophily and heterophily scores were calculated in three communities.
• Data focused on programs serving transition-age youth, adults, and children.

Main Results:

• Programs exclusively serving TAY demonstrated significantly higher heterophily (cross-age collaboration) than adult-only or child-only programs.
• Few other program characteristics or malleable factors predicted the level of cross-age collaboration.
• Specialized TAY programs appear to be natural hubs for inter-system linkage.

Conclusions:

• Programs dedicated to transition-age youth are vital for fostering collaboration between child and adult mental health services.
• These specialized programs offer valuable insights into bridging service divides for vulnerable youth.
• Interventions aimed at improving TAY mental health should leverage the collaborative potential of specialized programs.