What is the system challenge?

In Durham Region, children, youth and families living with mental illness and addictions often struggle to access appropriate services. Accessing needed services early in life can help improve long term outcomes and reduce the likelihood that mental illness and addictions will continue to impact children and youth into adulthood. (Kessler, R.C., Avenevoli, S. and Merikangas, K.R. (2001)).

Evidence:

Establishing a multi-organization, collaborative process to assist children, youth and families access necessary supports is not a new idea in the mental health and addictions field. This model has demonstrated success in facilitating inter-agency partnerships, leading to more cost-effective ways of working with families.³ It has also produced benefits for youth and families by ensuring quicker access to services that are aligned with youth needs, as well as higher job satisfaction among service providers.³

The DCFW builds upon best practices in the field by integrating the following key components.

Youth and family engagement – this occurs throughout the service delivery process, from intake to service planning.
A holistic and culturally safe approach – an approach that values the inclusion of non-traditional and non-formal supports in care planning.
Shared governance – an oversight committee comprised of Durham Region organizations that provides planning and evaluation guidance. Shared training and education – a core training curriculum that was developed, delivered and is maintained by the Durham community.

Find more evidence

To increase access to appropriate care for children and youth, The Durham Service Collaborative, with support from CAMH’s Provincial System Support Program, developed an intervention specifically for the region that builds on community strengths and aligns with other work already in progress. The Durham Collaboration Framework (DCFW) is a cross&dash;sectoral approach to service delivery that aims to improve collaboration amongst the agencies, organizations, and services supporting children, youth and families with multiple needs who are already accessing services, but whose needs are not being met.

There are a number of distinct but overlapping elements to the DCFW. These are:

The DCFW Oversight Committee - a small group of agency representatives and community stakeholders who provide high-level guidance and support;
The Durham Collaborative Planning Process (DCPP) - Involves the identification of children, youth and families in need, followed by collaborative and creative planning with traditional and non-traditional care providers, children, youth and families. The process results in a single shared achievement plan that meets the unique needs of children/youth and families;
The Achievement Plan - describes the overall achievements that children, youth and families are working towards, and outlines the steps, roles, responsibilities and timelines that have been agreed upon to meet these achievements;
Network of Champions – A community of practice formed by agency champions involved in the project;
Shared education and training - Region&dash;wide training and workshops related to capacity&dash;building and implementation of DCPP processes.

Taken together, these elements of the DCFW will improve the coordination of supports in Durham region for children and youth with complex mental health and addictions related needs.

Exploration
Installation
Initial Implementation
Full Implementation

?What's this?

Installation

The Service Collaborative consists of approximately 30 community stakeholders from the mental health, health, developmental, justice, child welfare, education, and settlement sectors, as well as Aboriginal and Francophone services, family members, and youth. Based on the need identified by the community to improve how youth and families engage in services, the DCFW was developed by drawing from research, best practices, and lessons learned from previous multi-sector collaborations.

Initial Implementation

To support ongoing capacity building and community application of the intervention, several Train-the-Trainer workshops were held. These workshops built the confidence of Agency Champions to provide leadership for the intervention within their agency and also enhance their ability to train agency staff on the intervention. To support ongoing partnerships, collaboration and shared learnings, a Community of Practice entitled the ‘Network of Champions’ was established.

A Host Committee, comprised of four organizations representing four different sectors was created. Each of the organizations provided different resources to support the sustainability of this intervention, including evaluation support, coordination, meeting space, and acting as a chair.

The Service Collaborative Implementation Team transitioned into the DCFW Oversight Committee. The DCFW Oversight Committee provides ongoing governance and leadership to the intervention.

Full Implementation

Over an eight-month period, five youth and their families were formally supported through the full DCPP, while approximately 16 youth have accessed additional supports through the Network of Champions table. An unexpected positive outcome has been that fewer children and youth have required access to the full DCPP than expected due to increased collaboration at the level of the Network of Champions.

Since the beginning of the project, Durham Region service providers report the following benefits:

Timely access to services by children, youth and families involved.
Positive outcomes in the children, youth and families who have participated in the DCPP.
Improved quality of collaboration and shared accountability among Durham Region service providers.

Creating change for families

Who is involved?

Durham Service Collaborative consists of approximately 30 community stakeholders from:

mental health
health
developmental
justice
child welfare
education
settlement sectors
Aboriginal and Francophone services
youth and family members

The Durham Collaborative Planning Process

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For more information, please contact:

Jonathan Berges, Regional Implementation Coach
416-535-8501 ext. 30323
Jonathan.Berges@camh.ca

CAMH PSSP

Durham Collaborative Framework

What is the system challenge?

What are we doing about it?

Exploration

Installation

Initial Implementation

Full Implementation

Who is involved?

For more information, please contact:

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