Engaging with Families at CAMH

Engagement with families is vital to the CAMH vision of transforming lives and our values of Courage, Respect, and Excellence.  We are pleased to share with you the launch of a renewed family engagement strategy and the establishment of an Office of Family Engagement.

In early 2015, CAMH announced a formal review of our family engagement. The renewal of our family engagement strategy reflects our commitment to our strategic plan, our focus on innovation and quality improvement, and how integral the involvement and support of families is to CAMH. The review explored a range of strategies for supporting the effective representation, participation and empowerment of families at the organizational level. The offices of Communications and Partnerships, Professional Practice and Education worked with expert consultants Sarah Cannon, Executive Director, Parents for Children’s Mental Health and Theresa Dostaler of Synergy Research and Evaluation. They conducted a literature review, an environmental scan and key informant interviews and heard from many family members and other stakeholders across the province to identify evidence-based practices related to family engagement.

During the review, our work with families has continued. This includes providing a centralized point of contact through Access CAMH, ongoing clinician support of families of clients in their care, the Family Resource Program, family engagement within the Provincial System Support Program work, family psycho-education programs offered within clinical services, and the continuing education of health professionals in effective family engagement through CAMH Education.

Two positions will be allocated to the Office of Family Engagement and will  work closely with various departments at CAMH to ensure integration across key portfolios, including the Empowerment Council.

Building on evidenced-based practices, the Office of Family Engagement will work with clinical programs to ensure improved family engagement at the point of care; review family engagement activities in program planning and evaluation; develop a family engagement strategy and evaluation plan; engage with families to provide health information and supports; liaise with family engagement leads across Ontario to share best practices; and, ensure our family engagement work meets regulatory and emerging standards such as the Excellent Care for All Act and Accreditation Canada’s Required Organizational Practices.

We are looking forward to launching the new Office of Family Engagement over the summer, and will keep you posted on our progress on this important CAMH initiative.