Helping young people navigate mental health issues

She says that her children’s generation and the generation before them have seen considerable increases in the prevalence of mental health conditions and that our youth mental health workforce is not keeping up with that. 

“We have a lot of staff burnout, long waitlists for mental health services and we also know that young people themselves are delaying care anywhere up to 12 years before they reach out for that human-centred care,” she explained.

To address this issue, Julia is co-designing strategies for integrating new technologies such as GenAI into human-led care for psychology, in particular, youth mental health. 

Using tech in youth mental health

Having received support from the UTS Disability Research Network through an Access and Inclusion Grant, Julia and her colleagues conducted a rapid review of AI-integrated care for youth mental health. 

“We also conducted interviews and focus groups with family members and health professionals of young people experiencing mental health problems to try to work out how they are already accessing technology for their mental health support and where, in their care journey, it might be helpful to integrate more of that alongside our human-led care,” Julia said.

As one of the project leads for the newly formed UTS Faculty of Health AI-Informed Allied Health Care Research Node, Julia is now applying implementation science principles to guide a process mapping exercise.

“We are preparing how to sit down with health professionals in this space and go through what the care journey looks like to identify what might be the barriers or facilitators to implementing AI in to the human-led care services they provide,” Julia said, adding that this work is helping set up UTS as a leader in integrating technology into healthcare in trustworthy and responsible ways that still uphold professional standards. 

We are preparing how to sit down with health professionals in this space and go through what the care journey looks like to identify what might be the barriers or facilitators to implementing AI in to the human-led care services they provide.

Julia’s work represents an integral step toward bridging the gap between the growing mental health needs of young people and the limitations of our current care systems. By co-designing AI-integrated solutions with families and professionals, Julia is helping to ensure that technology supports, not replaces, critical human-led care for youth mental health, in ways that are feasible and acceptable to the people providing and receiving that care. 

This approach not only addresses urgent challenges like staff burnout and delayed help-seeking, but also contributes to positioning UTS as a leader in developing trustworthy, inclusive, and professionally grounded digital innovations in allied health. 

As Julia’s research continues to evolve, this project offers a potential pathway for more responsive, accessible and effective mental health support for future generations.

What’s next?

• Learn more about Julia’s research.
• Read the rapid Review of Innovative Mental Health Support for Children and Young People: Generative AI Co-design Applications and Challenges | Current Developmental Disorders Reports
• Discover the UTS Disability Access and Inclusion Fund. 

This internal initiative is sponsored by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and developed with the generous support of the UTS Disability Research Network to support UTS researchers in enhancing the inclusivity and accessibility of their research practices, projects and outputs for people with disabilities.