Principles of Service Provision for Young People with Complex Needs: Insights from the Australian Service System

Abstract The term “complex needs” has been used to describe young people who have a range of multiple and co-occurring problems that can be caused by individual level (e.g., psychosocial needs) and broader social-economic factors (e.g., homelessness, child maltreatment, justice system involvement). Coordinating the multiple services required to support these young people and successfully engaging them in services can be challenging. The purpose of this study was to gain deeper insight into the barriers to, and strategies for, service engagement among young people who require support from multiple services. Interviews and focus groups (N = 12) were conducted with relevant government and non-government stakeholders in an Australian jurisdiction to obtain qualitative insights into barriers and strategies for effective service engagement. Thematic analysis identified 20 principal themes that were differentiated into two overarching categories relating to service engagement: 1) Barriers, and 2) Strategies, and across three levels: 1) Systems; 2) Services; and 3) Individuals. Many of the strategies to facilitate engagement were applicable across all three levels. For example, ‘flexibility’ was identified as a facilitator of service engagement from the individual practitioner level to broader service and system structures. This study highlights barriers that need to be overcome, and strategies that can be employed, to facilitate engagement between services and young people who have complex needs. There is a need to create a service environment that is adaptive to the needs of young people rather than one which requires these young people to adapt to any particular service.