Strengthening Collaboration for Youth Mental Health: Recap of the 2025 Interdepartmental Meeting

On October 16, 2025, the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal’s Mental Health Programs Directorate hosted the second edition of an interdepartmental half-day event on youth mental health at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.

The event drew caseworkers, child psychiatrists, psychiatrists, researchers and managers from youth services across the Mental Health and Addiction Programs Directorate. For this second edition, hosts Susan Théberge and Dr. Nisrine Masrouha underscored the fact that representatives from the Youth Directorate and other partner facilities, such as the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and the Children’s Hospital, were also in attendance.  

This meeting demonstrates our commitment to working together towards a shared understanding of services and providing accessible, better coordinated and better aligned services for at-risk youth or youth living with mental health challenges.

In pursuit of these objectives, participants discussed youth mental health pathways and the various services that comprise them to gain better insight into the experience of young people. They also identified key actions aimed at making these youth mental health pathways more seamless and efficient.

Discussions were supported by a number of activities including trajectory modeling, clinical cases (personas) and a World Café. These workshops provided participants with an opportunity to get to know each other better, strengthen interdepartmental collaboration and share their expertise.

This half-day event and the ensuing meetings were made possible thanks to the support of the Douglas Foundation.