Abstract:
Background Māori and Pacific people in New Zealand have youthful populations that experience high levels of mental illness but have low access to treatment. There is a failure of current mental health delivery systems to adequately provide responsive and accessible services to these fastgrowing population groups. There are low numbers of Kaupapa Māori and Pacific services serving children and adolescents with mental health and addiction issues. The significantly low number of Māori and Pacific clinicians working in child and adolescent mental health is also a major contributing factor (Bir et al., 2007; Ramage et al., 2005).
