One-stop shop for youth gets official name: Foundry North Shore

It’s official. The one-stop shop for youth needing easy access to mental health, drug and alcohol services and social services on the North Shore will be named Foundry North Shore.

It will be located in a 9,000-square foot-space at 211 West 1st Street in North Vancouver.

As announced in June, the storefront centre is a partnership between VCH and a new provincial program called the B.C. Integrated Youth Services Initiative (BC-IYSI).

Centre will offer five core services

Foundry North Shore will offer five core services: primary care, mental health services, substance use services, and youth and family peer support and navigation as well as social supports (e.g. vocational and housing services).

Site partners include the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Hollyburn Family Services, YWCA/WorkBC and the Canadian Mental Health Association.

The new centre will unite 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.

Foundry North Shore is one of five centres across B.C. that will open in spring. The others are in Kelowna, Prince George, Campbell River and Abbotsford. The centres are part of a model that will allow for earlier therapeutic interventions when mental health problems are just emerging and based on the succesful approach used at the Granville Youth Health Centre, which opened in March 2015..

“This centre will be extremely important in enhancing the integration of existing services on the North Shore,” says Tanis Evans, Interim Operations Director. “By bringing together core services and supports, the centre will support youth and their families with easier access to care. Whether a young person needs support for anxiety or depression, wants to see a family doctor or is struggling with a distressing situation, we will help them get the services they need.”

What’s in a name?

Choosing a unique name for the five new B.C. IYSI centres that would resonate with the public was a challenge. It’s why there has been broad engagement of young people, families, service providers and other partners in the naming of the initiative.

Foundry resonated deeply with youth on a number of levels.  Comments heard included:

• “The meaning behind it really put an emphasis on youth and staff working together at a specific task.”
• “It models the feeling of helping a youth out of the hole instead of making them do it on their own.”
• “The name Foundry makes me think of strength” and “a good foundation.”
• “I like the connection to a foundation and to the act of forging ahead.”

Young people identified three major themes that fit with Foundry – Finding (help, support, yourself), Creating/building (a path, connection, something together), Foundation (a solid foundation, building a new foundation). These themes have been summarized into Find. Forge. Found.

Foundry brings these three ideas together. For young people who are navigating life’s large and small challenges — from colds to relationships, from anxiety to job hunting — Foundry makes a difference by doing things differently.

At Foundry, communities, people, services, ideas and research are uniting to provide a province-wide culture of care and wellness — one that is judgment free, easy to use, collaborative, person-centred and effective.

Foundry was created to help young people find themselves, forge new paths for wellness and build a foundation for a healthy future.

Visit www.foundrybc.ca for more information.