Innovation Initiatives
Exploring new ways to improve care experiences, reduce barriers, and respond to emerging needs and challenges across our sector.
Innovation Initiatives
How innovation drives change
Innovation plays an important role in improving care and service experiences for children, young people, and families.
Our Innovation Initiatives fund projects that address emerging needs and challenges around child and youth mental health and substance use health. Focus areas are informed by ongoing engagement with partners, alongside evidence on gaps and opportunities to improve care.
Participating organizations implement and evaluate evidence-informed and promising practices that demonstrate potential for broader impact across the sector.
Over the years, funded projects have addressed barriers related to wait times, culture and stigma, health literacy, and access to care.
Planning a culturally responsive program?
Explore our new resource, which shares lessons learned from funding culturally responsive care through the Innovation Initiatives and offers considerations to help inform your approach.
Meet the 2025–26 grantees
Explore the organizations and projects supported through the 2025–26 Innovation Initiatives.
Browse previous projects
Explore past Innovation Initiatives to learn how organizations have implemented and evaluated promising practices in different communities and care settings. These project summaries highlight real-world approaches, lessons learned, and ideas that can be adapted in different contexts.
2023-2024 cohort
Theme: Culturally responsive care
Focus on implementing and evaluating culturally responsive child and youth mental health and addictions programs. Projects explore how services can be adapted to better meet the needs of racialized children, young people, and their families.
2021-2022 cohort
Theme: Strengthening virtual care
Highlights projects that strengthened virtual care by addressing key recommendations from the Transition to virtual care report. Teams tested ways to improve access, quality, and client experience in virtual service delivery.
2019-2020 cohort
Theme: Improving access to care
Features projects focused on improving access to care within local communities. These initiatives explore practical solutions to reduce barriers and connect children and young people to services sooner.