New South Wales Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health

NSW CAAH

The New South Wales Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health (often abbreviated as "NSW CAAH") is a capacity building organisation for Youth Health. In partnership with NSW Health and other sectoral stakeholders, the Centre seeks to improve the health and well-being of young people aged 12 to 24 in NSW, Australia. NSW CAAH does this through promoting better practice and young people’s access to services, professional development, developing resources, applied research, advocacy and policy development by working in partnership with relevant stakeholders, including young people themselves.

NSW CAAH is funded by NSW Health under the 1998 NSW Youth Health Policy. The centre originated as a public health initiative of the Department of Adolescent Medicine at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children‎, more commonly known as "The Children's Hospital at Westmead" where the centre is located. The NSW CAAH is proud that Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales, is Patron of the Centre and Clinical Professor David Bennett is Head of the Centre.

Research on Young Peoples Access to Health Care

Working with young people provides opportunities to prevent chronic and complex health issues later in life. Young people have specific health problems and developmental needs that differ from those of children or adults: The causes of ill-health in adolescents are mostly psychosocial rather biological. Young people often engage in health risk behaviours that reflect the processes of adolescent development: experimentation and exploration, including using drugs and alcohol, sexual behaviour, and other risk taking that affect their physical and mental health (AIHW, 2007). Young people often lack awareness of the harm associated with risk behaviours, and the skills to protect themselves as well as the lack knowledge about how and where to seek help for their health concerns (Chown et al, 2004). By intervening at this early life stage, many chronic conditions later in life can be prevented.

NSW CAAH is best known for it's research on young people's access to services (Booth et al, 2002; Kang et al 2005) and for translating this research into user friendly resources that services can use to improve young people's access (NSW CAAH 2005; 2006). Principles for overcomming the barriers to young peoples’ access to appropriate health care (Kang et al, 2005, CAAH, 2006) include:
1. Access facilitation
2. Evidence-based practice
3. Youth participation
4. Collaboration
5. Professional development
6. Sustainability
7. Evaluation

The NSW CAAH has translated research about young people’s access into user friendly resources which are increasingly being adopted by youth health and community-based services more broadly. "The Youth Health Better Practice Framework" (NSW CAAH, 2006) includes self-assessment checklists for services to improve young peoples’ access to health care. The GP Resource Kit (Chown et al, 2008) also provides a practical guide for General Practitioners and other clinicians such as allied health professionals in Community Health to work more confidently with young people.

References
* [http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/#01 Booth M, Bernard D, Quine S, Kang M, Beasley L, Usherwood T, Aperstein G & Bennett D (2002) Access to health care among NSW adolescents: Phase 1 Final Report. Sydney: NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.]
* [http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/#03 Chown P, Kang M, Sanci L, Newnham V and Bennett D (2008) GP Resource Kit, second edition, Adolescent Health: enhancing the skills of General Practitioners in caring for young people from culturally diverse backgrounds, NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health and Transcultural Mental Health Centre.]
* [http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/access_phase_2_report.pdf Kang M, Bernard D, Usherwood T, Quine S, Aperstein G, Kerr-Roubicek H, Elliott A & Bennett D (2005) Better Practice in Youth Health: Final Report on Research Study Access to Health Care Among Young People in New South Wales: Phase 2. Sydney: NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.]
* [http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/YPAHC_report.pdf NSW CAAH (2005) Young People’s Access to Health Care: Exploring Youth Health Programs and Approaches in NSW, NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health / The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Westmead NSW.]
* [http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/access_fact_sheets.pdf NSW CAAH (2006) ACCESS Study: Youth Health -Youth Health Better Practice Framework Factsheets, NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health/ The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.]
*NSW Health Department (1998) Young People’s Health: Our Future. Gladesville: Better Health Centre.

External links
* [http://www.caah.chw.edu.au NSW CAAH website]
* [http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pubs/subs/sub_adolescent.asp NSW Health – Adolescent Health]
* [http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/living/youth.html NSW Health – Youth Issues]
* [http://www.youth.nsw.gov.au/minister_and_policy/youth_action_plan/youth_policy_index NSW Youth Action Plan]