Intensive Residential Outreach Care (IROC) is a pilot service that started in April 2022. The service focuses on avoiding Tier 4 admissions for young people by offering therapeutic, relational, and trauma-informed approaches to support those who present with complex psychological distress and vulnerabilities. The service works collaboratively with the network around the young person to reduce the risk of crisis escalation.
IROC’s objectives are:
• Avoid Tier 4 admissions for children and young people who present with relational and emotional distress.
• Foster trauma-informed, therapeutic approaches to address their needs.
• Champion integrative care to facilitate collaborative multi-agency teamwork.
• Shift the narrative that sees the young person as the problem and to have a more holistic understanding of their needs, in the context of their relationships and environment.
• Enhance mental health outcomes through relational, compassionate interventions, to create brighter futures.
The team is made up of psychologists, nurse specialists, occupational therapists, and systemic psychotherapists.
Referrals are received primarily from the Toucan referral hub, who signal cases where hospitalisation can be avoided through intensive IROC support within the community.
The service carries out systems assessments and identifies strengths and challenges within the young person's network. Intensive support through network care planning, risk management and psychoeducation sessions, are tailored to assist caregivers, social care, healthcare, education, and other professionals involved with the young person.
A systems coach is allocated to the young person’s network and the intervention utilises the IROC clinical framework which is based on four key areas: secure, stabilise, support, and sustain so that systems can be enabled and empowered to maintain long-term changes.