A new collaborative partnership in Leamington will see access to much needed mental health services offered to youth five days a week.
Maryvale opened a satellite office in Leamington at the Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre earlier this week. Maryvale is an accredited children's mental health treatment center that serves Windsor-Essex youth and their families.
The office, known as the Abraham Orthodontics Community Youth Room, will give youth from between the ages of 13 to 18 access to services in their home community.
The new satellite office collaboration is between the Municipality of Leamington, Abraham Orthodontics and Maryvale.
Leamington has provided a significantly reduced rental rate for the use of this office in the NFFRC, and a donation from Abraham Orthodontics served to further offset Maryvale's rental cost.
Jenny Letink, Executive Director at Maryvale, says previously they were in the community three days a week with another partner but when they announced they'd be moving on it looked like their time in the Leamington office was coming to an end.
She says when the municipality reached out to initiate discussions, it led to to this important development.
"The end result is that Maryvale could bring our services to the youth and families. We've been able to eliminate the time and cost of travel as a barrier to receiving service for youth from the Leamington area, and we've been able to do that at a much reduced operational cost."
Maryvale will fund the balance of renting the space, and will be providing the clinical expertise.
Letink says the pandemic has been very challenging for everyone, but especially for youth.
She gave an example of students walking into Grade 11 for the first time, instead of Grade 9, having spent those two years in between learning from home and being isolated from friends, classmates and teachers.
Since the pandemic began, Letink says their referral rates for youth seeking mental health services have quadrupled, which is why it's so important that they'll now be in the community five days a week.
She says they'll be able to serve about 60 to 70 youth out of that centre in a year.
"We will have a clinical therapist there to provide scheduled sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at that office. And on Wednesday we will operate a drop in program from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. where youth or families can come into the office and receive a single session of direct support from a clinically trained therapist," she said.
Letink says on Fridays they will bring in their Family Navigation Worker for a different program, which will assist underserved youth and their families to navigate the local mental health and addictions system.
The biggest impact of this change, according to Letink, is that kids and their families won't have to travel to Windsor for anymore.
"You can appreciate all of the different demands on parents. Travelling and having to leave the home community to come to Windsor for services, it adds two hours to any appointment time. It's a true barrier to services. This allows us to provide the services to youth and families from Leamington in Leamington, they can even come in for their appointment on their way home from work," she said.
She says being located in the recreation centre is important too, as it helps peel away some of the stigma because going into the arena they could be going to workout or they could be coming for a counselling appointment.
Despite the fact they've been able to develop collaborative partnerships like this, Maryvale still has over 300 youth waiting for critical mental health services due to the rate of referrals.
Letink says they're trying to meet the needs but the demand for service has just been so high post-pandemic.
"This year we've almost served 500 youth in the first six months. Typically our rates are serving about 700 youths a year. So we're trying to rise to the challenge, and if any listeners of AM800 have ideas or suggestions on ways for us to help address that wait list, please don't hesitate to reach out to Maryvale. I'd be happy to set up a time to meet and talk about it."
Letink says youth across the county are struggling, and she's hoping that they can replicate similar collaborative partnership in other municipalities.
Mayor Hilda MacDonald says the opening of the Abraham Orthodontics Community Youth Room/Maryvale satellite office in Leamington is an important collaborative effort to connect their young residents in distress to the vital supports, services, and resources they need in their home community.
"The Municipality of Leamington is proud to support the opening of this children's mental health treatment centre in Leamington at our Recreation Centre. I would like to thank our partners, Abraham Orthodontics, for their investment in youth services, and Maryvale for their efforts to reach our young people where they are, and at a time when they need it the most," MacDonald said.