Extending the COSS Model to Youth Mental Health: Outcomes and Learnings from the Albury Project Mental Health Pilot

This article presents key findings and learnings from the Albury Project Mental Health Pilot, a six-month exploratory opportunity designed to extend the Community of Schools and Services (COSS) Model to proactively identify and support young people experiencing psychological distress in a regional Australian community. Working within the established COSS Model architecture and using population-level screening via the Australian Index of Adolescent Development (AIAD) survey, the pilot focused on a previously unreached and unsupported cohort of young people with high or very high scores on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) who were not engaged with existing mental health services. The support involved brief, tiered interventions tailored to individual needs. Short-term outcomes demonstrated improvements in K10 scores for the majority of participants, with many moving out of the K10 at-risk range. Medium-term data further showed sustained improvements in psychological distress and personal wellbeing for a substantial proportion of the cohort. The pilot identified a 'hidden cohort' and demonstrated that low-resource, brief interventions are capable of achieving high-impact outcomes within the existing COSS Model collective impact framework. While short-term, these findings suggest the COSS Model's adaptability and promise as a cost-efficient early intervention platform for youth mental health in broader community settings.