The Working with Children and Youth with Complex Mental Health Needs project is off to a busy start in 2015, having already hosted two webinars and the final regional workshop as well as preparing for the launch of the online course. Online course update:
Together with Hincks-Dellcrest Gail Appel Institute and Mind Your Mind, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), Ontario has developed a self-paced e-learning course focuses on “Brief Services.”
The course is currently in its final stages of development and will be available to registered participants as of February 16, 2015. For more information or to register for the course, visit the course page on the project website.
Webinar series update:
The nine-part webinar series offered by the project is entering its final month. To date, there have been seven webinars in English and one in French delivered to nearly 1,000 people. The most recent webinars are described below.
The last webinar focused on understanding the role that racism plays in the lives of children and youth living with complex mental health needs. Children and youth from racialized communities often face biases that translate to racism, and often lead to inadequate access to basic necessities of life such as housing, education and health care. These stresses can aggravate or even trigger mental health issues. Greg Cross and Joann Boswell from Across Boundaries delivered this webinar.
The preceding webinar was delivered by Brahm Goldenberg from the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, and focused on increasing the knowledge of direct service providers on child protection services, the duty to report, and strategies used to work with families and communities to ensure the safety of children and youth.
In the last month, the project also held the first French webinar entitled Les jeux vidéo et la santé mentale chez les adolescents and, launched the French project website with some additional French training resources. Toula Kourgiantakis, from the Problem Gabbling Institute of Ontario at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health expertly navigated the well-attended webinar.
Upcoming Webinars (click on the titles to register)
| Feb 5, 2015 | Webinar 8 – Gender Independent Children |
| Feb 12, 2015 | Webinar 9 – Children, Youth, Mental Health & Addiction |
| Feb 23, 2015 | Webinaire 2 – les enfants créatifs dans le genre |
Regional workshop update:
The regional workshops are wrapping up as the final workshop takes place January 29-30 in London, Ontario. This will be the fourth-regional workshop with previous locations in Thunder Bay, Ottawa, and Toronto.
These in-person workshops focused on trauma-informed frameworks and strategies for working with children and youth with complex mental health issues. Facilitators describe promising research and best practices for working with children and youth who have experienced and look at themes related to vicarious trauma and the implications of being a helping professional in this field. Although the workshops are now complete, a full video recording of the workshop will be available on the project website in March.
For more information about the project or to register for any of the remaining trainings please visit the project website at www.complexneeds.ca