Welcome to the EPA 2022 Interactive Programme 

Mental health care for transitional age (16-24y) is a new hot topic, requiring adapted care, not child-, nor adult- psychiatric treatment. Flanders(Belgium) has 4 psychiatric wards for people in transition age. We look at specifics of this treatment program, merging the psychiatric and developmental perspective into useful tools. @ease is the Dutch variant of Australian Headspace, and opened its doors in 2018. At present 5 centres are operational and the first results on the youth attending the centres will be presented, as well as qualitative data on barriers and facilitators of accessing youth mental health services. Since 1999, the development of more than 100 “Maisons des Adolescents” (MDAs) has enabled young persons to gain access to specific care in integrated youth-friendly facilities in France. The various medical programmes of MDAs depend on the priorities of local teams rather and community needs as well as on official regulations. All MDAs offer essential services such as a “Health and Prevention Space” open daily and multidisciplinary consultations. The MDAs from the start addressed an age group in transition (young people aged 11-21 years) rather than a specific illness. The success of the MDA network is already widely acknowledged by users, professionals and policy makers. Findings on temperament, cognitive, genetic and functional imaging factors will be summarised in relevance towards both alcohol initiation and subsequent transition to heavy alcohol use in adolescence, offering important links in developing early proactive interventions targeting subgroups of adolescents at risk for future alcohol use disorder and addictive behaviours.