The Ripple Project: Improving the mental health of young people in out of home care.

A tailored mental health intervention that enhances the care roles and capacities of carers in out of home care in the northern and western metropolitan regions of Melbourne. The intervention involves specialist mental health practitioners working with case managers and CSOs to incorporate evidence-based practice (EBP) elements into work processes. The EBP elements will be drawn from empirically supported treatments (ESTs) including motivational interviewing (MI), cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and the adolescent community reinforcement approach (ACRA). The methods used by the mental health practitioners for sustainable knowledge and skills transfer include training, co-working to improve confidence and skills, embedding a clinician, mentoring and feedback at individual and organisational levels, mental health consultation and group work. The intervention will be delivered over a period of two years on a fortnightly basis. The intervention will be delivered face-to-face to staff groups, or when secondary consultation is requested, one-to-one sessions with individual staff members. Group sessions will run for one to two hours. Individual sessions will run for one hour. Process evaluation will be conducted to monitor implementation of the intervention. This will include record keeping by mental health practitioners, six-monthly quantitative assessments with participants and annual focus groups and interviews to assess acceptability of the intervention.