Document 3:8 (2025–2026) / Published 14.04.2026 Services for children and young people with mental health problems and disorders

Overall assessment

The Ministry of Health and Care Services has not sufficiently ensured that children and young people with mental health problems and disorders receive the help they need.

The National Audit Office of Norway (NAO) considers this to be objectionable.

Conclusions

• There are too great differences in the services children and young people with mental health problems and disorders receive in the municipalities
• The municipalities place a great deal of responsibility on the public health nurses, even though they have neither the mandate nor the capacity to treat children and young people with mental health problems and disorders
• More children and adolescents are receiving treatment in the specialist health service, but there are large differences in waiting times, in the number of referrals that are refused, in the number of contacts and in the itinerant service
• There has been an increase in the number of work-years in the health trusts, but the number of referrals granted has increased more
• The services offered to many children and young people are not sufficiently coordinated and comprehensive
• Place of residence determines what services children and young people with mental health problems and disorders receive
• Despite several management measures, key goals have not been achieved and there is a lack of information to monitor the area
• The weaknesses in the mental health services can have major consequences

The National Audit Office's (NAO) recommendations

There are too great differences in the services offered to children and young people with mental health problems and disorders. There is therefore a need for measures to ensure that this group receives a better and more equal service.

NAO recommends that the Ministry of Health and Care Services:

• follows up to ensure that children and young people in need of mental health services receive adequate treatment regardless of where they live
• pays particular attention to improving the situation of children and young people who live in municipalities that have a poorly developed range of services and where there is little cooperation between the municipality and the specialist health service
• strengthen the work to improve the knowledge base for the actors in the field, so that, among other things, key objectives in the area can be better followed up
• continues the work to clarify the division of responsibility between the municipalities and the specialist health service with regard to mental health services for children and adolescents

In order to strengthen the municipalities' work with services for children and young people with mental health problems and disorders, we recommend that the Ministry:

• clarifies the municipalities' responsibility for following up children and young people who need services even after the specialist health service has ended its treatment
• clarify the role of public health nurses in the work with children and adolescents with mental health problems and disorders

We also recommend that the Ministry of Health and Care Services ask the regional health authorities to:

• ensure that the region has sufficient capacity to provide good treatment to children and young people who need specialised mental health services
• examine the large differences between health trusts in waiting times, in how many referrals are rejected, in the number of contacts and in the outpatient service, and implement measures where there is undesirable variation