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This study aims to explore how young people in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands and Croatia, experienced leaving CAMHS and identified a range of factors impeding optimal discharge or transition to adult mental health services (AMHS).

Interviews about discharge or transition planning, including what information was provided about their ongoing mental health needs, undertaken with 34 young people aged 17–24, all previous or current attendees of CAMHS. Some interviews included accounts by parents or carers. Data were thematically analysed.

A number of previously well-documented barriers to a well-delivered discharge or transition were noted. Two issues less frequently reported on were identified and further discussed; they are the provision of an adequately explained, timely and appropriately used diagnosis and post-CAMHS medication management. Overall, planning processes for discharging or transitioning young people from CAMHS are often sub-optimal. Practice with regard to how and when young people are given a diagnosis and arrangements for the continuation of prescribed medication appear to be areas requiring improvement.

Study participants came from a large cohort involving a wide range of different services and health systems in the first pan-European study exploring the CAMHS to adult service interface. Two novel and infrequently discussed issues in the literature about young people’s mental health transitions, diagnosis and medication management were identified in this cohort and worthy of further study.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the value of clinical genetic diagnostics in the lives of people with an intellectual disability (ID), their families, and their primary and professional caregivers. It has been shown that psychologists are more likely to make use of the opportunities offered by clinical genetic diagnostics if they have seen the psychological benefits in their own practice. Moreover, this paper aims to promote the practice of informing people with ID, their families, and other caregivers regarding the current technological advances in genetic diagnostics, thereby allowing these patients to decide for themselves whether to utilise these opportunities.

The authors report four case studies in which the psychosocial value to each patient is pivotal.

In these four cases, it is clear the medical model can augment the social model by providing an interpretation of its meaningfulness in the lives of the people concerned.

Case studies alone can have limited scientific significance. This approach examining the significance of clinical genetic diagnosis should be studied further in larger groups.

It is hoped that psychologists and other professional caregivers will become enthused about the value of clinical genetic diagnostics and will choose to discuss the option of referral for clinical genetic diagnostics with their patients more often.

People with an ID who are seeking mental health care, and their caregivers, should be given the opportunity to take part in the decision regarding whether to use clinical genetic diagnostics, which may even have a destigmatising effect.

Quality of life may improve for people with an ID seeking mental healthcare and for their caregivers as well by opening up discussion regarding the opportunities presented by clinical genetic diagnostics. The fact that people are able to make their own choices based on their own considerations can have a destigmatising effect.

Young people transitioning from child to adult mental health services are frequently also known to social services, but the role of such services in this study and their interplay with mental healthcare system lacks evidence in the European panorama. This study aims to gather information on the characteristics and the involvement of social services supporting young people approaching transition.

A survey of 16 European Union countries was conducted. Country respondents, representing social services’ point of view, completed an ad hoc questionnaire. Information sought included details on social service availability and the characteristics of their interplay with mental health services.

Service availability ranges from a low of 3/100,000 social workers working with young people of transition age in Spain to a high 500/100,000 social workers in Poland, with heterogeneous involvement in youth health care. Community-based residential facilities and services for youth under custodial measures were the most commonly type of social service involved. In 80% of the surveyed countries, youth protection from abuse/neglect is overall regulated by national protocols or written agreements between mental health and social services, with the exception of Czech Republic and Greece, where poor or no protocols apply. Lack of connection between child and adult mental health services has been identified as the major obstacles to transition (93.8%), together with insufficient involvement of stakeholders throughout the process.

Marked heterogeneity across countries may suggest weaknesses in youth mental health policy-making at the European level. Greater inclusion of relevant stakeholders is needed to inform the development and implementation of person-centered health-care models. Disconnection between child and adult mental health services is widely recognized in the social services arena as the major barrier faced by young service users in transition; this “outside” perspective provides further support for an urgent re-configuration of services and the need to address unaligned working practices and service cultures.

This is the first survey gathering information on social service provision at the time of mental health services transition at a European level; its findings may help to inform services to offer a better coordinated social health care for young people with mental health disorders.