New funding and the recent recruitment of a child psychiatrist to the area are being hailed as good news for young people who need the support of local mental health care services. The Huron-Perth Centre for Children and Youth has just been given the go-ahead to add the equivalent of four and a half new staff positions as a result of provincial funding announced earlier this year.
"That is huge," said chief executive Terri Sparling. "This is exciting news."The money, which amounts to more than $300,000 for Huron and Perth, will be used specifically to hire counsellors to help reduce the waiting list of local children and youth who need care for mental health issues. It will also help Huron-Perth Centre staff work more closely with schools to reach young people at risk.
"Both of those are much-needed," said Sparling, "so it's really an appropriate investment."The Huron-Perth Centre serves clients in both counties through its offices in Stratford, Listowel and Clinton. The provincial government first announced in the spring that it would provide $257 million over three years to improve mental health and addiction services for young people across Ontario.
"For our area to get over $300,000 of that $257 million is huge," said Sparling, who credited Perth-Wellington MPP John Wilkinson and his Huron-Bruce counterpart Carol Mitchell for their support of children's mental health, as well as local community partners and Children's Mental Health Ontario for advocating for more funding. "It feels like someone has finally heard and has committed some dollars to it," she said.
More good news came recently in the form of a new child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Rosaline Salo, recruited to work with the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance. That's something Sparling sees as an important piece of the mental health-care puzzle here, providing a local link to professional treatment for young people.
"We expect her to work closely with family doctors, family health teams, ourselves and a number of other community partners," said Sparling. An estimated one in five children struggles with a mental health issue.