Mental health care closer to home: Hôtel-Dieu expands youth programs to county sites

There are now more mental health options for kids in Essex County.

Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare's Regional Children Centre (RCC) has expanded its mental health programming to Leamington and Harrow, offering assessment, treatment and consultation to children and youth both at home and at school.

For Sonja Grbevski, vice-president of mental health and addictions for HDGH, the program expansion is about bringing services to where people live.

"We're starting with the Harrow site, but at least it gives individuals the opportunity to reduce some of their travel," she said. "We have an obligation to provide care to the county."

Grbevski said it's important to remove as many barriers as possible to help youth get treatment.

"Looking at our data and what we're hearing from our families ... we have about 25 per cent of our clients who do come to us from the county," said Grbevski. "Anywhere from Amherstburg to Kingsville, Harrow, Essex, McGregor. This way we can start seeing individuals — both that we're already seeing or are new to us — closer to home."

At the Bridge Resource Centre in Leamington, the program will see teens from ages 14 to 21 involved with the youth justice system. A mental health social worker will provide counselling on Wednesdays.

Families will also be able to attend RCC services at the Harrow Health Centre, if it's closer for them than options in Windsor.

Long drives to access care for kids take a toll on parents

Margo Reilly, executive director at the Harrow Health Centre, was thrilled when the project was finalized.

"When I began in health care management, I noticed there weren't a lot of local resources for our team [in Harrow]," she said. "We were sending a lot of people out to Windsor ... everything's a 40-minute drive."

Because of that, Reilly made it a point to bring resources to the Harrow centre from other agencies, including providing groups with opportunities to host educational events.

She knew how important it was to have access to health care close to home — because Reilly spent hours every month driving her own child to access health services elsewhere in the region.

"Transportation is a huge barrier for folks," said Reilly. "I spent hours driving between appointments and trying to figure out what was going on with my child. It was a goal of mine to bring those services closer to home."

Reilly said with three little ones under the age of seven at the time, driving to appointments was a challenge.

"You're grabbing the baby out of the car, you're subjecting yourself to traffic, you have to stop and deal with a crying child ... I couldn't work full-time. I had to work part time," said Reilly. "I had to dedicate a lot of my energy to ensuring my child got everything he needed."

According to Reilly, the RCC is already providing Harrow services every Friday.

Grbevski said the plan is to add more staff and more locations as time goes on, but that more funding will be required to expand further. The expansion into Leamington and Harrow is being done with no external funding.