Trajectory of service use among Albertan youth with complex service need

Youth with complex service needs require extraordinary services that are often managed by different ministries (government departments) and in many cases from various service sectors. They often require education, child welfare, and justice services, and have increased exposure to poverty, mental health issues, chronic health conditions, and decreased high school graduation. While public services are designed to improve outcomes for youth with complex service need, little is known about how these youth use services during the child to adult transition period in Canada. Knowledge of service use in this transition is important as access and eligibility for services changes during this period for youth. To better understand the needs of youth with complex service need, we used cross-ministry administrative data from Alberta to identify service use pattern clusters from age 15 through 20 years. For revealed clusters, we report and discuss poverty, mental health use, high cost health service use, and high school completion covariate proportions. The data analysis revealed that those that used more services generally showed higher proportions of poverty, mental health use, high cost health care use, and high school incompletion than those that use less services. These service use clusters and covariate trajectories can be used to inform decision makers on how to allocate resources to support youth with complex service need during the child to adult transition.