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The purpose of this paper is to understand why young people and adults enrolled in co-produced, co-received Discovery College (a youth-focused Recovery College) courses, what their experience of participating was, and whether attitudes towards education changed as a result of course participation.

The study used a pre- and post-participation survey to assess both the qualitative experience of participants in Discovery College courses, along with a quantitative component measuring change in attitudes to education and learning opportunities.

The project found that participating in Discovery College benefitted young people through: an improved attitude towards education; and greater likelihood of participating in future study after completing a Discovery College course. People who participated in Discovery College courses, both young people and adults were positive about their experiences with the college and experienced positive attitude change. This work demonstrates the importance of Discovery College as part of a holistic approach to the care of young people with mental illness.

This paper reports on one of the first evaluations of youth-focused Recovery Colleges globally. It provides evidence of the effectiveness of the Recovery College model for a youth cohort.

The purpose of this study was to identify and understand the barriers and enablers to the implementation of youth peer support in a clinical mental health service. The development of a lived experience workforce in mental health is a key component of policy at both the state and the federal level in Australia. Implementing a peer workforce within existing clinical services, however, can be a challenging task. Furthermore, implementing peer support in a youth mental health setting involves a further degree of complexity, involving a degree of care for young people being invited to provide peer support when they may be still early in their own recovery journey.

This paper reports on a formative evaluation of the beginning stages of implementation of a youth peer workforce within an existing clinical mental health service in Melbourne.

The project found that it was feasible and beneficial to implement youth peer support; however, significant challenges remain, including lack of appropriate training for young people, uncertainty amongst clinical staff about the boundaries of the peer role and the potential for “tokenism” in the face of slow cultural change across the whole service.

Very little evaluation has yet been undertaken into the effectiveness of implementing peer support in youth mental health services. This paper offers an opportunity to investigate where services may need to identify strengths and address difficulties when undertaking future implementation efforts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of staff during the development and implementation of an Australian-first, family-focussed service addressing the mental health needs of young people (aged 12–25 years) with an intellectual disability. This study aims to understand the challenges and successes of the staff team when navigating their way in a new program working with a complex client group.

This study used a thematic analysis on data collected from focus groups at two time points in the implementation phase of the new program. Thematic analysis of the data was conducted to identify important themes relating to the staff’s challenges, successes and learning.

The findings showed that there was a lot of adaptation needed for staff members trained in either mental health, or disability, but not both. Another key finding was the importance of working with the young person’s family system as well as their existing system of support services. This major focus of the work for staff could be challenging due issues arising in the family unit and a lack of collaboration between services. Working with this complex client group was viewed as challenging and stress inducing; however, the motivation and attitudes of staff were found to be positive factors in the running of the program.

This paper makes an original contribution to the field, as it provides a unique look at staff experiences when needing to adapt to a new and challenging workplace that was the first-of-its-kind in Australia.