Paving the path to connected care

The Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health is excited to announce the launch of our policy-ready paper focused on strengthening the interface between primary care and community-based child and youth mental health services.

In Paving the path to connected care: Strengthening the interface between primary care and community-based child and youth mental health services, principal investigators, Mario Cappelli and Stephanie L. Leon examine the latest literature and evidence-informed practices to highlight the knowledge and first-hand experience of youth, families, service providers, and other stakeholders.  

With system transformation underway, the timing is right to move forward with the policy recommendations in this paper and to establish collaborative and integrated care partnerships to improve access to care, quality of care, and mental health outcomes of children and youth across the province.

On the heels of launching this paper, we are happy to announce our continued collaboration with lead author, Dr. Mario Cappelli, to test out three of the proposed recommendations for strengthening the interface between primary care and community-based child and youth mental health services. 

An applied research project has been designed to explore structures and practices that support inter-provider communication, identify clinical/service pathways, and pilot the use of a standardized screening tool (HEADS-ED) adapted to primary-care.  

This research project will be piloted in two to three Ontario communities - small rural/northern to large urban/central. This work will take the better part of a year to plan, implement and evaluate. Once complete, results will be shared publicly by the Centre and will inform future work in this important area of practice.

Check out the policy-ready paper here.