Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario – Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Background of the organization

Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario (YWHO) is a network that offers an array of mental health and substance use services to youth aged 12-25. YWHO builds on similar initiatives and other evidence-informed models already underway in Canada and internationally. 

Project description

Integrating services across providers is key to increasing youth wellbeing. However, mental health service providers have multiple, separate data systems and this fragmentation compromises the sector’s ability to adequately understand youth needs.  

 YWHO has implemented the My Wellness Passport, developed by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, across their sites which allows them to collect information and data to inform measurement-based care. Measurement-based care is the systematic evaluation of symptoms before or during a clinical encounter and use of the results to inform decision-making about treatment at the level of the individual client. YWHO is ready to add 10 hubs to its Ontario network starting in 2022.  

Funding from the McConnell Foundation will be used to support YWHO to scale the Wellness Passport platform in tandem with their hub expansion.  A shared data platform will enable the hubs to 1) guide services for individual youth; 2) efficiently examine and share information about the needs and outcomes of youth; and 3) facilitate system-wide improvements in mental health and substance use services.