LAUSR

World Psychiatry 21:1 February 2022 sure that evidence-based mental health interventions reach young people who need them most. McGorry et al provide a number of examples of youth mental health services which have embraced digital technology and provide digital service platforms, such as headspace in Australia. Evidence for specific digitally-enabled, human-supported interventions is emerging, including MOST (moderated online social therapy). While youth mental health services and the associated digital interventions such as MOST were originally inspired by the aim to intervene early in the course of first-episode psychosis and other severe mental illness, the focus of these digital services has now broadened to include a wider range of youth psychopathology. It is important to consider a number of limitations and unresolved questions facing the new systems of youth mental health care presented by McGorry et al. First, establishing these new services could result in diversion of resources away from other services for young people which fall outside their clinical remit or organizational boundaries. Second, it remains unclear how best to personalize the level of human support needed for young people who access digital mental health services, and how best to sign-post young people engaging with digital platforms to the most effective interventions. Third, a flexible, developmentally sensitive approach is needed to meet the changing psychological and social needs of youth from ages of 10 to 25. For example, younger adolescents engaging with digital interventions have been shown to benefit from parental engagement and support in their therapy, while, for older adolescents and young adults, peer-support may be of increasing relevance. Platforms and youth services need to reflect these developmental variations. Fourth, to date, there has been little attention on interventions that focus on building young people’s resilience to online harms such as cyberbullying. Youth mental health services need to address the specific challenges of the digital environment for young people with different mental health vulnerabilities, including depression, risk for self-harm, eating disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. As well as designing a wider digital environment that supports young people’s mental health, we need services to acknowledge that youth with mental health problems may engage with the online world differently, and that they need help to develop the skills and competencies to build resilience and maximize the benefits of the digital world for their mental health and well-being.