BACK TO HOSPITAL LISTING
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$2,821,499
2,200
Assessments
10,188
People trained
32,290
Patients served
Program overview
New Program for 2025: BC Children’s Hospital Healthy Minds Program
Approximately 95,000 children and youth in BC experience mental health challenges. This program creates resources to improve family mental health literacy. It also enhances training for more community practitioners, enabling earlier intervention and better understanding, helping ensure children receive timely, accessible care and support within their communities, when they need it most.
PainCare 360 at BC Children’s Hospital
PainCare 360 provides effective care for all aspects of pediatric pain. It shares knowledge on pain care to teams throughout the hospital and care providers across the province, develops educational resources, and launches key programs to develop pediatric pain care that will help foster healthier, happier children, youth, and families.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Develop online courses for healthcare professionals
- Launch the Comfort Ability Program at BC Children’s (with Boston Children’s Hospital), offering youth opportunities to learn about chronic pain and management strategies
- Host a Pediatric Pain Symposium attended by more than 160 patients, families, community-based care providers, and hospital staff.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$1,997,343
1,344
Assessments
1,630
Patients served
Program overview
Mental Health Research 4 Kids
This innovative program is connected to The Summit and led by researchers at the University of Calgary and the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute. Researchers have created a registry that connects interested youth and families accessing mental health services with current mental health studies, linking discovery and care.
Patient and Family Centered Care at The Summit
The Summit provides a nurturing environment and delivers programs that promote self-expression and self-confidence among youth receiving mental health services. Today, informed by leading clinical practices and consultations with youth and family advisors, The Summit’s certified Child Life specialists are preparing to offer arts and horticultural therapy programs.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Integrate research and care
- Provide a nurturing environment for children and youth receiving care
- Enable the adoption of effective programs used by world-leading organizations.
- Support early-intervention programs that help to prevent mental health crises
- Build capacity for care by training and educating pediatricians, front line healthcare workers, mental health leaders, and community providers.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$2,345,283
40,359
Assessments
2,016
People trained
53,313
Patients served
11
Treatment spaces
Program overview
Stollery Mental Health Services Team
Limited access to early mental health care leads many young patients in crisis to the Stollery’s specialized pediatric Emergency Department. To address both urgent and non-emergency needs, funds are being used to expand services and integrate mental health care across the entire healthcare system
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Family of Support funds have helped to:
- Support the development and operation of a mental health walk-in-clinic
- Increase the capacity at the Stollery Outpatient & Urgent Psychiatry Clinic
- Enhance care and prevent mental health-related escalations with enhanced training provided by the clinical nurse educators.
- Reduce wait times for patients and families through increased capacity and improved coordination
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$1,172,648
1,749
Assessments
124
People trained
867
Patients served
33
Treatment spaces
Program overview
PRIME: Promoting Innovation in Mental Health through eHealth Excellence
Launched in 2022, PRIME is enabling researchers to develop and study eHealth models focused on delivering more timely access to care and support for a range of groups, such as neurodiverse youth and young people experiencing intersections of mental illness and other issues such as disability, chronic illnesses, or systemic racism.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Allowed PRIME to better understand existing barriers to accessing mental health services
- Shed light on the community’s experience with eHealth therapeutics for child, youth, and family mental health.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$731,673
4,474
Assessments
5,147
Patients served
5
Treatment spaces
Program overview
The STC Mobile Health Bus
Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation is working with the Saskatoon Tribal Council (STC), Medavie Health Services West, and the Government of Saskatchewan to deploy a small fleet of mobile clinics that bring medical care, including mental health care, to the seven First Nations communities that make up the STC.
Mental Health Intensive Care Room
Many youth experiencing acute mental health challenges turn to the Emergency Department (ED) at Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital for crisis care. Thanks in part to Family of Support, the hospital now has two spaces in its ED for patients in mental health crisis, including the Mental Health Intensive Care Room.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Family of Support funds have helped to:
- Expand the STC Mobile Health Bus fleet; two new vans were added in the spring of 2023.
- Enable capital upgrades to make the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital ED safer and more comfortable for patients experiencing mental health crisis. The upgrades also support the safety of ED staff and other patients.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$1,569,113
8,384
Assessments
607
People trained
3,923
Patients served
3
Treatment spaces
Program overview
The Head to Toe (H2T)
H2T is a suicide screening program for all admitted, inpatient youth 12 and older. If a patient answers “yes” to any of the questions in the validated screening tool, nurses facilitate a mental health assessment. The screening aims to ensure that care teams never miss an opportunity to provide suicide-prevention support.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
The DBT program was developed to address the needs of adolescents who have difficulty regulating their emotions, resulting in chronic or repeated suicidal ideation, self-injury, family conflict, and school problems. The CHEO DBT team provides training in the hospital and in the community.
Child and Youth Counsellor (CYC) in the ED
Family of Support has helped to fund the presence of a dedicated mental health-focused CYC in the ED, 24/7. This around-the-clock presence ensures specialized care for patients who present at the ED in mental health crisis and supports allied care professionals.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Gain the flexibility to adopt a new evidence-based intervention (H2T)
- Extend the benefits of dialectical behavioural therapy beyond the hospital and into the community
- Expand the hours during which mental health support is available in the ED.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$1,160,439
116
Assessments
13
People trained
118
Patients served
6
Treatment spaces
Program overview
Transition Care Program
Children’s Hospital is building a transition care program for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Care Program. Family of Support funds are helping to increase capacity and enable efficient, effective transition care. One key priority is alleviating the stress patients can experience from missing school while admitted to hospital.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Increase capacity for transition care
- Support three new hires focused on mental health.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$842,453
181
Assessments
3
People trained
167
Patients served
Program overview
Substance Use Supports for Pediatrics
Offering connected substance use support from hospital to community, with trained addiction specialists providing care at the bedside to help youth facing serious challenges with substance use and addiction
Using Virtual Reality to Deliver CBT
Exposure treatment can be difficult to implement. For example, for patients who fear weather events we often have to rely on videos, which are less effective than real-life exposures. In this pilot, virtual reality will expose patients to difficult experiences in immersive but controlled ways, and help them practice related strategies.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Family of Support funds have helped to:
- Support the recruitment of staff who deliver integrated substance use services bridging from hospital to community and contributing to capacity building within the hospital.
- Enable the purchase of VR-related technology, including software, headsets, and an app.
- Support the collection of data to shape treatment, enabling care teams to note how long a user engaged in the exposure, for example, and to gather physiological data to evaluate user responses.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$3,310,167
441
Assessments
393
Patients served
Program overview
Neuropsychological assessments
In these in-depth assessments, a trained provider uses diverse approaches – from conversations with parents to on-site testing – to understand a young person’s current functioning in areas such as reading comprehension, memory, and motor skills. Next, clinicians recommend appropriate supports such as occupational therapy or speech therapy to aid continued development.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Family of Support funds have helped to:
- Enable SickKids to perform around 100 such assessments each year;
- Accelerate access to these assessments – a key priority since they can help young people receive appropriate support during key developmental windows;
- Empower the SickKids clinic team to keep pace with ever-increasing demand for these highly personalized, resource-intensive assessments.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$962,943
681
Assessments
50
People trained
995
Patients served
15
Treatment spaces
Program overview
Launching in 2025: Transforming Lives: A Cutting-Edge Clinic for Adolescent Well-Being
This new clinic will offer a more modern, safe, nurturing, and inclusive environment where teens can get the specialized medical care and therapeutic support they need. With 1,200 additional square feet as well as improved settings tailored to this patient population, the team will be able to increase the number of patients and families treated each year.
Centre of Excellence for Adolescents with Severe Obesity (CEASO)
Severe obesity in teenagers is increasingly prevalent. This condition can lead to a range of serious health complications, diminishing quality and length of life. A growing quantity of evidence shows the importance of intervention when obesity is severe, and CEASO meets an urgent need for multidisciplinary support in this area.
Family-based therapy (FBT)
In the FBT program, trained care providers deliver evidence-based treatment to adolescents, primarily for anorexia and bulimia. Importantly, families are engaged in the treatment process. Where possible, care providers seek to intervene before patients’ conditions have become severe enough to warrant inpatient care, reducing hospitalizations.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
CEASO:
- Improve patients’ quality of life, both on a mental and physical level
- Train additional physicians and mental health trainees in advanced prevention and early intervention approaches
- Increase patients’ learning of coping strategies and skills to deal with stress.
FBT:
- Decrease the number of hospitalizations and duration of hospital stays
- Increase the number of patient assessments.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$957,940
18,491
Assessments
74
People trained
788
Patients served
10
Treatment spaces
Program overview
New Program for 2025: Integration of AI solutions in the trajectory of mental health care
This program aims to disrupt existing barriers by improving the accessibility, quality, and equity of mental health care for all children. It will rely on concrete artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to free up clinical time, standardize practices, identify complex cases earlier, and better coordinate multidisciplinary treatment.
Technology-supported training and observation rooms
CHU Sainte-Justine has created seven new rooms for therapy and three for observation, all with audiovisual equipment and other technology that lets supervisors discreetly evaluate and guide the training of the next generation of mental health leaders. The rooms let early-career professionals enhance their practice, ultimately benefiting patients.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Support care and training simultaneously
- Make capital improvements that will benefit patients for many years
- Advance the entire hospital’s conversations and policies on telehealth norms of practice.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$1,796,330
19,000
Évaluation
4,077
Personnes formées
13,346
Patients servis
2
Espaces de traitement
Program overview
The Learning Link
Under the umbrella of the Learning Link (a broader training and knowledge-mobilization program), the IWK has most recently worked to build mental health expertise across more of the hospital’s nursing staff to ensure that, as staffing configurations change, young people always have access to the right mental health support.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Establish a therapeutic space where care delivery is seamlessly integrated with training and research to build capacity in child and youth mental health expertise.
- Turn evidence into action for the mental health and well-being of children, youth, and their families
- Extend clinical reach and build capacity across Nova Scotia and the Maritimes, transforming child and youth mental health care to provide the right service with the right person, in the right place, at the right time.
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED TO DATE
$511,566
1,273
Assessments
9
People trained
15,186
Patients served
13
Treatment spaces
Program overview
The Tuckamore Centre
A residential treatment facility for youth aged 12 – 18 from across Newfoundland and Labrador with complex mental health needs. Established in 2016, it offers a safe, home-like environment, along with an on-site school, a multipurpose room, a physical fitness area, and accommodations for family overnight visits.
Hospital-Based Mental Health & Addictions Programming
Outpatient programs in particular benefit from donor support, which helps them acquire resources such as sensory items and clinically vetted, youth-friendly literature. These tools and resources are vital for programs’ smooth functioning, and contribute to positive outcomes for patients and families.
The North Star Child and Youth Advocacy Centre (CAYAC)
The Janeway partnered with other agencies to establish The North Star Child and Youth Advocacy Centre in Newfoundland and Labrador, to support young people who have experienced or witnessed abuse. The Centre has suspended operations pending changes to its service delivery model; we hope to reopen it as soon as possible.
How Family of Support Funding Has Helped
Funds provided by Family of Support have helped to:
- Ensure The Janeway’s Mental Health & Addictions program can continue to meet the needs of children and youth in a variety of settings – in the hospital and beyond.
- Enable more access to early interventions that can profoundly affect how their mental health evolves, preventing emerging concerns from reaching the point of crisis.
