Delivering the integrated, multidisciplinary care that people and communities increasingly need is inherently challenging in Australia’s highly siloed healthcare system. Value-based health care provides a framework for services to come together around the needs of individuals, with the aim of not only driving improvements in the outcomes and experiences of consumers – but also in enhancing the experiences of clinicians who are continuously challenged to do more with less support. 

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the mental health crisis among children and adolescents, straining access to specialist care. Community clinicians, often the first point of contact, faced increased responsibility without adequate training or support. The COMPASS (Connecting Mental-health Paediatric Specialists and Community Services) model was developed to address this gap by enhancing clinician confidence and access to child and adolescent psychiatry expertise. 

This briefing paper reviews the COMPASS model. It found that the model effectively enhances clinician confidence in managing child and adolescent mental health disorders, reduces reliance on specialists’ services and fosters collaborative care. It had the added bonus of supporting clinician wellbeing by reducing feelings of professional isolation and burnout.

COMPASS is now in its 5th year of operation and is ripe for scaling nationally, especially in areas where access to child and adolescent psychiatry expertise is scarce. This includes rural areas and growth corridors in Australia where families may struggle to pay the out-of-pocket costs required to access mental health care privately.