Table 1.

Converging on mental health through integration, improvement, and investment

Integration through policy
− Adoption of ‘mental health in all policies’ approaches
− Leverage Sustainable Development Goals that support child/youth mental health, including:
○ Goals that promote child security and social–emotional development
○ Goals that promote child cognitive development
○ Goals that promote health care access
Integration through governance
− Incentives for intersectorial consultation and joint action, including opportunities for embedding mental health specialists in related agencies
− Shared evaluation plans building mental health measures into assessments of projects in related sectors
− Cross-sector program planning (e.g. across maternal and child health, adult and child mental health, housing and employment support, education)
Integration through delivery
− Use of task-sharing methods to increase skill range of cross-sector front-line staff
− Re-engineer mental health treatment and promotion interventions for use in non-specialist and non-medical settings
− Development and use of broad-based client assessment tools
− Further adaptation for children and youth populations of evidence-supported integrated behavioral health models in primary care (e.g. ‘collaborative care’)
Improvement
− Development of numerical targets for child mental health and wellness – UNICEF ECDI, WHO Global Mental Health Action Plan
− Embed indicators into national data systems or other shared methods for reporting
− Cross-sector and cross-national collaboration to identify potential new or best practices
− Adoption and spread to common use of ‘learning collaborative’ and other quality improvement and improvement science methods for these goals
Investment
− Establish a ‘Global Fund’ for parent and child mental health, and convene a preparatory Planning Summit for Child Development and Mental Health
− Continue to build the evidence base for the impact of mental health and related child social and cognitive development on short- and long-term economic and social development