‘One-stop shop’ for North Shore youth with mental health/substance use challenges to open next spring
This time next year, North Shore youth in need of easy access to mental health and social services will be able to pop into a Lonsdale-area storefront centre thanks to a partnership between VCH and a new provincial program called the B.C. Integrated Youth Services Initiative (BC-IYSI).
The yet-to-be-named “one-stop shop” for youth 12-24 will offer primary care, mental health and substance use counselling, and social supports (e.g. vocational and housing services) as well as youth and family peer support and navigation.
The North Shore storefront will be one of five centres, which were chosen out of 25 applicants following a rigorous review process, to open across B.C. in the next year. The centres will be part of a model that will allow for earlier therapeutic interventions when mental health problems are just emerging.
Quick facts
- 1 in 5 youth experience mental health and substance use challenges that affect their ability to thrive at home and at school.
- 130,000 young people under the age of 24 sought help for mental ill-health or problematic substance use services in B.C. in 2012-2013 (Source: Health Sector Information, Analytics and Reporting, Ministry of Health, 2015)
- 75% of all mental ill-health or problematic substance use appears before the age of 25.
Reducing stigma, improving access
The storefront centres – to be designed in partnership with youth and families – are part of a province-wide goal to change the way young people access health and social services and to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.
For Terry Bulych, who is temporarily vacating her role as Team Lead – Child & Youth Mental Health & Addictions Services to be the Clinical Planner for the North Shore’s BC-ISYI centre, the hub is critical to streamlining and centralizing services in order to be more responsive to youth in need.
“This hub is crucial to the community given the current fragmentation of service delivery across the North Shore,” says Terry. “The integrated team approach helps create a clear pathway with seamless transitions for young people and their families.”
When Terry started out her health career as youth worker on the North Shore almost 30 years ago, she remembers local planners and leaders discussing the need for a one-stop youth-focused health centre that would provide mental health and social services under one roof. That opportunity is now here.
Terry Bulych is the Clinical Planner for the new BC-IYSI centre for youth that will be centrally located in the Lonsdale area.
Like most things in life, timing is everything. A paradigm shift has occurred as more and more youth and families are opening up about how mental health challenges are affecting their lives.
“The reason it’s happening now is we’ve finally reached the tipping point. There is growing momentum around mental health awareness and the need for cohesive and truly accessible mental health and substance use services for youth,” says Terry. “This is an exciting project and I believe it will have a positive impact on the community – for youth and their families.”
The five BC-IYSI centres (North Vancouver, Kelowna, Prince George, Campbell River and Abbotsford) are the first phase of a province-wide network that will use the Granville Youth Health Centre, a one-stop storefront on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, as a model. St. Paul’s Hospital Inner City Youth team opened the Granville centre in March 2015.
Centralizing services
The new hub will centralize the VCH North Shore youth mental health and addiction services into one location as well as allow public health and primary care to co-locate at the same site.
“We are scattered in three different locations so being all together under one roof will be an enormous benefit for clients and staff,” says Terry. “The hub is also largely built on partnerships so a number of people from different organizations will be spending time in our new hub, each offering their own unique contributions such as vocational counselling, housing services and peer support services.”
The centre is expected to be fully operational by March 2017. More detailed information for staff and physicians will be shared as the next phases of the project unfold.
Members from five of the B.C. communities (North Shore, Kelowna, Campbell River, Prince George and Abbotsford) chosen to open a BC-IYSI centre attend an announcement of the centres.