New South Wales Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health

The New South Wales Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health (often abbreviated as "NSW CAAH") is a capacity building organisation for Youth Health. In partnership with NSW Health and other sectoral stakeholders, the Centre seeks to improve the health and well-being of young people aged 12 to 24 in NSW, Australia. NSW CAAH does this through promoting better practice and young people’s access to services, professional development, developing resources, applied research, advocacy and policy development by working in partnership with relevant stakeholders, including young people themselves.

NSW CAAH is funded by NSW Health under the 1998 NSW Youth Health Policy. The centre originated as a public health initiative of the Department of Adolescent Medicine at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children‎, more commonly known as "The Children's Hospital at Westmead" where the centre is located. Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales, is Patron of the Centre and Clinical Professor David Bennett is Head of the Centre.

Research on Young Peoples Access to Health Care

NSW CAAH conducted research on barriers to young people's access to services (Booth et al, 2002) and ways of overcoming those barriers (Kang et al 2005). NSW CAAH has translated this research into fact sheets and Youth Health Better Practice Framework (NSW CAAH 2005; 2006).

The NSW CAAH has translated research about young people’s access into user friendly resources which are increasingly being adopted by youth health and community-based services more broadly. The Youth Health Better Practice Framework (NSW CAAH, 2006) includes self-assessment checklists for services to improve young peoples’ access to health care. The GP Resource Kit (Chown et al, 2008) also provides a practical guide for General Practitioners and other clinicians such as allied health professionals in Community Health to work more confidently with young people.

References
*[http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/#01 Booth M, Bernard D, Quine S, Kang M, Beasley L, Usherwood T, Aperstein G & Bennett D (2002) Access to health care among NSW adolescents: Phase 1 Final Report. Sydney: NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.]
*[http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/#03 Chown P, Kang M, Sanci L, Newnham V and Bennett D (2008) GP Resource Kit, second edition, Adolescent Health: enhancing the skills of General Practitioners in caring for young people from culturally diverse backgrounds, NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health and Transcultural Mental Health Centre.]
*[http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/access_phase_2_report.pdf Kang M, Bernard D, Usherwood T, Quine S, Aperstein G, Kerr-Roubicek H, Elliott A & Bennett D (2005) Better Practice in Youth Health: Final Report on Research Study Access to Health Care Among Young People in New South Wales: Phase 2. Sydney: NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.]
*[http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/YPAHC_report.pdf NSW CAAH (2005) Young People’s Access to Health Care: Exploring Youth Health Programs and Approaches in NSW, NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health / The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Westmead NSW.]
*[http://www.caah.chw.edu.au/resources/access_fact_sheets.pdf NSW CAAH (2006) ACCESS Study: Youth Health -Youth Health Better Practice Framework Factsheets, NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health/ The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.]
*NSW Health Department (1998) Young People’s Health: Our Future. Gladesville: Better Health Centre.

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