Deadline: 23-Oct-20
Health Standards Organization (HSO) has declared the Improving Integrated Care for Youth Initiative, in partnership with: Health Canada and Frayme. Working together, they will build HSO standards and implementation tools with people, communities and health systems across Canada that aim to simplify pathways to mental health and addiction services for youth and their families.
IICY is a three-year pan-Canadian program, funded by Health Canada’s Health Care Policy Contribution Program and Frayme, that builds HSO standards and implementation tools aimed at improving the integration of youth mental health and addiction services. They are building these tools with youth, families, providers, community members and policy makers and testing these tools in real-life settings to learn how they drive and sustain change.
Objectives
The primary objectives of the IICY Learning Collaborative are:
- To build and test HSO standards and implementation tools that drive improvements in the design, delivery and evaluation of care pathways for youth mental health and addiction services with real people, in real settings;
- To learn from integrated youth services networks from across Canada on how the HSO standards and implementation tools drive action and co-create change so that care pathways for mental health and addiction services are better connected, easier to navigate and meet youth and their families when, where and how they need it.
The IICY Learning Collaborative does not specify the use of one IYS model over another; instead, it allows for flexibility in the design and implementation of an IYS model that is fitted to local context and need. However, IYS is grounded in key principles for every delivery model by different jurisdictions and communities.
Funding Information
The IICY Initiative provides $90,000 in funding to up to six (6) integrated youth services networks in Canada (inclusive of youth, families, providers, community members and policy makers) to participate in a national, virtual learning collaborative. Suggested expenses for seed funding for the integrated youth services network include:
- Personnel, including salaries, wages and benefits of employees;
- Professional services, i.e. contractual personnel;
- Youth and family honorariums;
- Travel and accommodation;
- Materials and supplies, including office supplies, audio visual materials, etc.
Principles
The following are core IYS principles that underpin integrated, people-centered youth mental health and addiction services:
- Rapid, easy and affordable access;
- Youth specific care;
- Awareness, engagement and integration;
- Early intervention;
- Youth partnership;
- Family engagement and support;
- Continuous improvement; and
- Prevention.
Many of the integrated youth mental health and addiction initiatives in Canada and internationally use these core IYS principles to build models that integrate the following services:
- Mental health and addiction services, including psychological services and counseling; substance use services;
- Primary care,
- Youth and family peer support;
- Employment, education & training supports;
- Social services, including housing; and
- A variety of recovery programs such as recreation, the arts, life skills etc.
Eligibility Criteria
The Call for Applications is targeted at provincial backbone organizations or community leads (e.g. local lead agency, network lead or community organization leading local integration) in Canada who currently coordinate the design, operations, and delivery of integrated youth services to a local community or to local communities within their jurisdiction.
- The provincial backbone organization will convene 1 – 3 communities who are working to deploy, or do deploy, their local IYS model. Together, the backbone organization and the convened communities will collectively form the integrated youth services network for the IICY Learning Collaborative.
- The community lead will convene the organizations within the identified IYS community network that will collectively form the integrated youth services network for the IICY Learning Collaborative.
*The provincial backbone or community lead will submit the joint application, on behalf of the integrated youth services network for the IICY Learning Collaborative, along with the Executive Sponsor signatures from each organization participating in the network. The provincial backbone organization or community lead will facilitate the activities that are a part of the IICY Learning collaborative to the integrated youth services network.
For more information, visit https://healthstandards.org/iicy-asij/