MJA policy on sponsored supplements

To the Editor: I am concerned that the Journal supplement “Early intervention in youth mental health”, published on 1 October 2007, may contravene the MJA policy on sponsored supplements. Item 9 of that policy (http://www.mja.com.au/public/information/instruc.html#Supplements) states:

While many of the articles in this supplement are clearly scientific papers, a minority read more as advertorials and promote the interests of two of the supplement’s sponsors.1-3

The ORYGEN–headspace approach to adolescent mental health differs from the approach of other expert organisations, including the Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and the Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association.4 Both these organisations support ORYGEN and headspace in seeking to enhance mental health services and transition to adult services for adolescents, but not in the proposed “specialist youth-specific (12–25 years) mental health services providing comprehensive assessment, treatment and social and vocational recovery services”2 (Dr Phill Brock, Chair, Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, RANZCP, personal communication). This arrangement does not fit with the way in which other service providers (education, juvenile justice, medicine) are organised, or with the legislative framework that protects the rights, welfare and safety of children (0–17 years of age).

Children are not young adults, and child and adolescent mental health service models differ significantly from the traditional focus of adult mental illness. Most teenagers require a family-centred, developmentally appropriate, contextually sensitive, multimodal and systemic model that is less well developed in adult mental health services, including ORYGEN.

In spite of claims to the contrary in the supplement, these different approaches are in competition for resources. ORYGEN and headspace have a product to sell (to government and to the medical and lay community). The publication of this supplement has provided them with a platform without presenting an alternate view.