Children and youth mental health and substance use service announced for 7 more B.C. school districts

The B.C. government is introducing school district-based care teams to better serve children and youth with mental health and substance-use issues in seven new locations: Fraser-Cascade, Kootenay-Columbia, Mission, Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Okanagan-Shuswap, Pacific Rim and Powell River.

According to Jennifer Whiteside, Minister for Mental Health and Addictions, the Integrated Child and Youth (ICY) teams will be multidisciplinary, and possibly include clinical counsellors, youth substance-use clinicians, child and youth mental-health clinicians, Indigenous Elders and family and support workers. 

"We want these services to be where kids are," she said. "We're bringing together supports from schools, from the community, from our health-care system, from the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and the team is cutting across all of those different agencies." 

Whiteside said the teams will be formed by reorganizing staff already working in various sectors, and, in some cases, new hires to fill new positions. 

Whiteside acknowledged hiring new staff in the current environment of healthcare labour shortages is an issue. 

"That has been one of the challenges over the last couple of years in ensuring that we've got teams to the stage where they can start to see kids, is making sure we have all the staff in place," she said. 

Whiteside could not say how long it will take to have the teams announced Thursday up and running. She said the first steps were to post positions and identify a project lead.

ICY teams have already been announced in five other school districts: Richmond, Coast Mountains, Okanagan-Similkameen, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows and the Comox Valley, bringing the total number to 12.

The province is aiming to have fully operational teams in 20 school districts by 2025.