4.6 At least 6-months prior to transfer of care child and adolescent mental health services clinician initiate transition planning with the adult mental health services provider, which may include joint working meetings or a period of parallel care; include youth (and their family members/caregivers, if appropriate) in meetings.

A period of joint or parallel care can ease the transition process for service providers and the youth and their family members. The success of the individual's transition planning process may be dependent on the infrastructure created as part of the organizational policy on transitions. Well established partnerships with adult mental health services enable opportunities for parallel care and collaboration.

Youth involvement in meetings can be an important confidence- and skills-building opportunity for young people. In advance of meetings involving youth and both care teams, work with the young person to identify and understand their role, what to expect during the meeting, and how involved they will be in the process moving forward. This process is likely to be informed by the readiness and developmental needs of each individual youth.

While six months is the suggested length of time, the organization's timing for initiating the transition planning process may be dependent on the service design or program length. Standards for this initiation point should be set in the organization's policy – refer to Component 2.1 and 2.2 for more information on this topic.