Background

While elaborating on the Barcelona Mental Health Plan (2016-2022), the Barcelona City Council detected the need to bring mental health services closer to young people, adolescents, and families, adapting to their needs and dynamics, and offering them socio-emotional support to face their discomfort and psychological problems associated with life cycles. With this goal, Konsulta'm program was created, offering individual, group, and community counseling to young people, and counseling and guidance to professional teams in the territory that work in facilities/services with adolescents or young people, about specific cases or situations

The Konsulta'm teams involve pairs of multidisciplinary professionals from the same Mental Health Centers. Child and Youth Mental Health in each district, are located in specific municipal facilities for young people, where no access, neither referral, prior appointment, or parental consent is required. The attention received is characterized by being a free, specialized, anonymous, and immediate consultation, key characteristics for facilitating the access of young people and adolescents without links to mental health services, assuming a change of model of mental health care towards the community.

The program was developed based on outstanding international experiences, such "La Maison Des Adolescents", in Paris, and the American initiative to disseminate social and emotional learning promoted by The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

The implementation process was supported by the Avedis Donabedian Research Institute, collaborating in the design process, methods and follow-up of the program.

From the beginning (2018) and especially after the Covid 19 pandemic these new services had a huge challenge to overcome: the increased emotional distress, and the effects on mental health in adolescents and young people. In this context, the Konsulta’m program has had to adapt practices to a new kind of need for the target population, very affected by social restrictions and confinement.