Mr. Ian Power:

In response to Deputy Crowe's first question, one of the things we do on SpunOut is to publish lived experiences from young people. We recognise that young people who are part of our service do not have a perspective on many of life's issues. When young people experience or get into difficulty many of them wonder if they are the only person who is feeling this way or the only person who is experiencing something. That is really important and it goes back to the point made by Dr. Duffy on the importance of a peer to peer approach. It needs to detail the good, the bad and the ugly, in particular in relation to what many young people find useful. Sometimes when they experience talking therapies for the first time, they might not click with the clinician, and when they do not, they often think that means that talking therapies are not for them, when in actual fact that young person just did not click with that one particular clinician. What is also important in terms of the experience is the culture within services. I welcome wholeheartedly the values in action programme. It is a viral cultural change movement that is taking place in the HSE to build both confidence and satisfaction and pride in the service being provided by staff because they continually see not just in the mental health services, but widely throughout services, that the narrative around the HSE can be quite negative. It is really important to make sure that the people who are working in the services know they are valued and that there is a culture of pride. That speaks to the issue the Deputy raised that it is not just about money but enjoying where one works.

I am conscious that this will be my last input so I would like to add that I think the work this committee is doing is really important. This report and the reports already published have the opportunity to be transformative in setting an agenda and roadmap that does not currently exist for mental health care, similar to that of Sláintecare. Mental health care should not be lost within the overall report. I am looking forward to leadership on that vision, because that is really necessary in the area of mental health care.

On the Youth Mental Health Pathfinder initiative, there is a proposal in the National Youth Mental Health Task Force Report 2017 calling for a team to be established under section 12 of the Public Service Management Act 1997, which is similar to the structure of the Criminal Assets Bureau, that is able to work across Departments. One of the major challenges we face as a country is the challenge in getting Departments to work together and take collective responsibility for issues such as youth mental health, which crosses the Departments of Education and Skills, Children and Youth Affairs and Health and be able to deliver co-ordinated actions that will be transformative for young people.