Page 11 - 2018SpringSpectrum

Members in the News

The Cowan Foundation $100,000 Grant
Supports Children’s Mental Health Centre
When a child or youth is struggling with complex mental
health issues requiring intensive support, they can’t wait. A
$100,000 grant from The Cowan Foundation enabled Luther-
wood to reduce wait times and improve treatment and aca-
demic outcomes by restructuring its mental health treatment
and academic program delivery.

Left to Right: John Colangeli (Lutherwood), Heather Fedy (Luther-
wood), Donna Buchan (Lutherwood), Carol Parsons (Cowan), Terry
Reidel (Cowan)

Lutherwood offers intensive mental health treatment for 12-18 is flexible enough to accommodate fluctuations in demand.
year old youth with complex mental health issues. As part of The resulting model:
their treatment plan, the youth attend school at Lutherwood’s
Children’s Mental Health Centre, which is staffed by Luther- • shortens wait times and increases the capacity to help the
wood counsellors and Waterloo Region District School Board youth as desks are no longer dedicated to a specific day or
teachers. residential treatment program
• mixes residential and day treatment youth giving both
Traditionally, the youth were organized into five program-spe- groups more opportunity to practice social and emotional
cific classrooms. However, this approach resulted in some pro- skills in an environment that more closely parallels life in
gram desks sitting empty while there were wait lists for others. the community
The clinical and teaching staff worked together to develop a • accommodates students enrolling and completing their
model that allows the youth to attend the classroom that best treatment plans outside of traditional (cont on pg 14)
meets their literacy, learning and developmental abilities and

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Spring 2018