Tele-Mental Health
The Ministry of Health selected Vanier Children’s Mental Wellness to host Ontario’s Tele-Mental Health Services—Western Hub, which transitioned to Vanier on January 24, 2022. Vanier was selected for this program due to its clinical expertise, planning capacity, and affiliation with the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University and the London Clinical Psychology Consortium.
What are Tele-Mental Health Services?
Tele-Mental Health is a creative virtual solution for increasing access to child psychiatry and reducing wait times for children and youth in rural, remote, and underserved communities.
Tele-Mental Health Service (TMHS) provides children and youth in rural, remote, and underserved communities with access to specialized mental health consultations via videoconferencing, as close to home as possible.
TMHS also strives to provide culturally appropriate services to First Nations, Métis, Inuit, urban Indigenous, and francophone children, youth, and their families.
Tele-Mental Health:
- Uses secure videoconferencing technology,
- Provides consultations with child psychiatrists to children/youth and their families without having to leave their community,
- Provides direct consultation that allows for diagnosis and treatment recommendations, and
- Provides agency staff with vital education and training to build their professional expertise and better serve children and youth in their community.
- It is a consultation model with access to specialized mental health consults provided by three Hubs: The Hospital for Sick Children, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and Vanier Children’s Mental Wellness.
What programs and services are offered?
Direct clinical consultations:
TMH consultant (Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and/or a Licensed Allied Mental Health Professional) will provide a one-time clinical consultation with the case manager and the child/youth and their family.
- Support diagnostic clarification
- Treatment recommendations
- Medication review and recommendations
- Help prioritize complex treatment
- Assist in managing safety and risk
Professional-to-Professional Consultations:
TMH consultants will meet with the Community Case Manager to provide consultation regarding management and/or treatment for child and youth clients.
- Child/family does not consent to a direct clinical consultation
- Child/family does not show up for the consultation
- A follow-up to direct clinical consultation.
Program Consultations:
TMH consultant (Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and/or a Licensed Allied Mental Health Professional) provides team consultation or education to Community Care Providers regarding assessments, management, and treatment.
Capacity building for community agencies to support mental health providers with clinical, program wide and community issues.
- Individual youth and their emotions/behaviours
- Case formulation and management
Education Sessions:
Requested education sessions can cover a wide range of clinical topics and be delivered as a one-time session or as a short educational series. Education sessions are tailored to the requesting agency's needs and can be introductory or advanced to meet the diverse needs of practitioners.
Who can make a referral?
The Tele-Mental Health Service is available to all publicly funded Child and Youth community service providers working in rural, remote, and underserved areas.
This includes professionals working in:
- Child and youth mental health agencies
- School boards
- Hospital outpatient programs
- Family health teams
- Aboriginal Health Access Centres
- Friendship Centres
- Youth justice settings
- Child welfare agencies
- Other community-based agencies that provide child and youth mental health services
Eligibility:
• Age 0-18 (up to 18th birthday)
• Presents with mental health concerns
• Case manager must be present during the consultation
Exclusion criteria:
• Custody/access assessments
• Parenting capacity assessments
• Youth justice assessments for court purposes
• Immediate risk assessment (contact local Emergency department)
How can you refer?
The TMHS has partnerships with coordinating agencies across Ontario that help youth and their families access community resources. These coordinating agencies also help families connect with specialist services like ours when needed. Referrals should be directed to the coordinating agency dedicated to each service area.
- Woodview Mental Health and Autism Services is the Service Coordination Agency for ‘Area 2’, which includes Wellington, Niagara, Haldimand, Norfolk, Brant, Perth, Oxford, Elgin, Chatham-Kent, Lambton, Huron, Bruce, and Grey.
Link to Woodview website/contact info
2. All youth who identify as Indigenous can also access TMHS Services through the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre (SOAHAC).
Link to SOAHAC website/contact info
For More Information:
To find out more information on the Tele-Mental Health Services Western Hub
westernhub [at] vanier.com (whub[at]vanier[dot]com) or 519.433.3101 ext.133