The Canadian Mental Health Association, (CMHA) Grand River Branch and Trellis Mental Health and Development Services (Trellis) officially launched their merger on April 1st, 2013, making CMHA Waterloo Wellington Dufferin branch the largest community mental health provider in Ontario. The new organization will have 11 locations in the tri-city area, Guelph and Orangeville, and a combined budget of $30 million. Approved by the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network back in January, the LHIN is providing one-time grants of $1.1 million for infrastructure and $2.1 million in base operations for start-up.
Any savings resulting from administrative consolidations will be channelled into enhancing client access to new and existing services. Currently, the CMHA Grand River branch helps 10,000 clients annually and Trellis serves 8,000 clients. The CMHA Grand River branch also serves more than 20,000 people every year, via calls to its distress centre.
You can read the newspaper article published by The Record, “Merger will mean region home to largest mental health provider in Ontario” or the joint announcement released by CMHA Grand River Branch and Trellis Mental Health and Development Services on theWaterloo Wellington Local Health Integrated Network site.