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Supporting and evaluating Canadian youth mental health service transformation

On-the-ground service and system transformation cannot be done by any one person or small group, and certainly not by researchers or clinicians alone. We have played a meaningful role in operationalizing on-the-ground youth mental health service reform in Canada, through projects that develop and implement novel services, economic evaluations of youth mental health service reform, and networks and knowledge translation regarding data and measurement in youth mental health.​​

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Key Projects:

  • ACCESS Open Minds: this multi-site project funded by CIHR and the Graham Boeckh Foundation aimed to implement services in 14 sites across six Canadian provinces and territories.

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  • ​Shah JL, Nguyen T, Surood S, Poudel S, Urichuk L, D’Andrea G, Iyer S, Malla A, Latimer E, Jacobs P (2026). Health-related outcome improvements via the ACCESS Open Minds youth mental health service transformation project in Edmonton, Canada. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, in press.

  • Iyer SN, Boksa P, Joober R, Shah JL, Fuhrer R, Andersson N, Lal S, D'Andrea G, Morrison N, Noel V, Rabouin D, Cowan T, MacDonald K, Levasseur MA, Poukhovski-Sheremetyev F, Abdel-Baki A, Augustine L, Friese K, Godin I, Hay K, Hutt-MacLeod D, Plourde V, Rabbitskin N, Reaume-Zimmer P, Rousseau C, Rudderham H, Abba-Aji A, Aubin D, Urichuk L, Vallianatos H, Golchi S, Winkelmann I, Chisholm-Nelson J, Malla A (2025). An approach to providing timely mental health services to diverse youth populations. JAMA Psychiatry, e244880. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.4880

  • Iyer SN, Shah J, Boksa P, Lal S, Joober R, Andersson N, Fuhrer R, Abdel-Baki A, Beaton A, Reaume-Zimmer P, Hutt-MacLeod D, Levasseur M, Chandrasena R, Rousseau C, Torrie J, Etter M, Vallianatos H, Abba-Aji A, Bighead S, MacKinnon A, Malla AK (2019). A minimum evaluation protocol and stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial of ACCESS Open Minds, a large Canadian youth mental health services transformation project. BMC Psychiatry, 19(1), 273. 

  •  Abba-Aji A, Hay K, Kelland J, Mummery C, Urichuk L, Gerdes C, Snaterse M, Chue P, Lal S, Joober R, Boksa P, Malla A, Iyer S, Shah JL (2019).  Transforming youth mental health services in a large urban centre: ACCESS Open Minds Edmonton. Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 13(S1), 14-19. 

  • Abdel-Baki A, Aubin D, Morriseau-Guillot R, Lal S, Dupont ME, Bauco P, Shah J, Joober R, Boksa P, Malla A, Iyer SN (2019). Improving mental health services for homeless youth in downtown Montreal, Canada: Partnership between a local network and ACCESS Esprits ouverts (Open Minds), a national services transformation research initiative.  Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 13(S1), 20-28. 

  • Vallianatos H, Friese K, Martinez Perez J, Slessor J, Thind R, Dunn J, Chisholm-Nelson J, Joober R, Boksa P, Lal S, Malla A, Iyer SN, Shah JL (2019).  ACCESS Open Minds at the University of Alberta: Transforming student mental health services in a large Canadian post-secondary educational institution.  Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 13(S1), 56-64. 

  • Malla A, Iyer S, Shah J, Joober R, Boksa P, Lal S, Fuhrer R, Andersson N, Abdel-Baki A, Hutt-McLeod D, Beaton A, Reaume-Zimmer P, Chisholm-Nelson J, Rousseau C, Chandrasena R, Bourque J, Aubin D, Levasseur MA, Winkelmann I, Etter M, Kelland J, Tait C, Torrie J, Vallianatos H; ACCESS Open Minds Youth Mental Health Network (2018). Canadian Response to Need for Transformation of Youth Mental Health Services: ACCESS Open Minds (Esprits ouverts).  Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 13(3), 697-706. 

  •  Malla A, Shah J, Iyer SN, Joober R, Boksa P, Lal S, Boksa P, Andersson N, Fuhrer R (2018). Youth mental health should be a top priority for health care in Canada.  Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 63(4), 216-222. 

  •  Iyer SN, Boksa P, Lal S, Shah J, Marandola G, Jordan G, Doyle M, Joober R, Malla AK (2015). Transforming youth mental health: A Canadian perspective. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine (Special Focus on Youth Mental Health: International Perspectives), 32(1), 51-60. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipm.2014.89

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  • Economic evaluations of ACCESS Open Minds: we lead return on investment analyses in urban, rural and Indigenous settings, to determine whether they have successfully shifted care upstream - away from resource-intensive hospital settings and towards more efficient community-based care.  ​​

  • Pan-Canadian network on data and measurement in youth mental health: With collaborators in multiple provinces, this network brings together stakeholders as diverse as front-line clinicians, service managers, Indigenous partners, and youth and their families/carers in addition to prominent researchers. It has integrated considerations of equity, diversity and inclusiveness into its activities and initiatives – remaining mindful of complex and intertwined determinants of health, sample diversity and representativeness, and committed to OCAP principles in its partnerships with Indigenous communities and youth.

  • Shah JL, Moinfar Z, Anderson KK, Gould H, Hutt-Macleod D, Jacobs P, Mitchell S, Nguyen T, Rodrigues R, Reaume-Zimmer P, Rudderham H, Rudderham S, Smyth R, Surood S, Urichuk L, Malla A, Iyer SN, Latimer EA (2023). Return on investment from service transformation for young people experiencing mental health problems: Approach to economic evaluations in ACCESS Open Minds (Esprits ouverts), a multi-site pan-Canadian youth mental health project. Frontiers in Psychiatry, in press.

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