Pictured above: Lillian Duda, a Family Advisory Committee member, says Slaight’s coordinated care model with a focus on recovery helped give her son a path forward.
The Slaight Family Centre for Youth in Transition welcomed more than 40 experts from across the province – including service users, family members, policy makers, researchers, clinicians and administrators – to discuss strategies around launching a new model of care for young people with psychosis.
Called EPI-SET (Early Psychosis Intervention – Spreading Evidence-Based Treatment), the full-day event sparked conversation and answered questions around implementing the coordinated early psychosis intervention program NAVIGATE in four sites across the province, including North Bay, Sudbury, Niagara and Durham Amaze – Lakeridge.
“Improving quality of care through a new intervention in a large and complex heath system requires a diverse and passionate team such as this,” said Dr. Aristotle Voineskos, Director of the Slaight Centre. “By making the effort to be there, each team member demonstrated a level of enthusiasm, initiative, and commitment that gives us a running start for this ambitious project. Everyone cares very deeply about this project and we all want to do our very best to ensure its success.”
Through this Slaight-led collaboration, NAVIGATE will provide comprehensive evidence-based care to patients and their families, including medication to reduce symptoms, a family education program, resiliency training to help patients identify and develop strengths, and counselling to help young people pursue their education and employment goals.
The project is supported by a $1.5-million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research initiative, with matching funds from CAMH’s Provincial System Support Program, Project ECHO Ontario Mental Health and CAMH Foundation.
“This coordinated care model with a focus on recovery is important to me,” said Lillian Duda, whose son was hospitalized twice with psychosis in his teens. Lillian spoke to EPI-SET in her role as a Family Advisory Committee member.
“I really believe it gave us a path forward for our son. We were struggling in the beginning because we didn’t know how to help him – CAMH gave us the context and the support we needed for our family.”