Thursday April 13, 2023 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Young people and families will have faster, easier access to mental-health and addiction services and primary care with the expansion of Foundry centres to more communities throughout the province.
Through Budget 2023, government will add 12 new Foundry centres to provide young people ages 12-24 and their families and caregivers free and confidential services to fit their unique needs. That brings the total to 35 (including 15 currently open and eight more under development).
Supports include mental-health and addiction counselling, physical and sexual health care, peer support and social services.
“Young people struggling with mental health and addictions and their families urgently need support,” said Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. She described the Foundry centres as “integrated systems of care”.
“Opening Foundry centres in communities across B.C. means more youth will get the help they need and deserve right in their own community. Foundry centres are a vital part of our government’s work to build an integrated and seamless system of mental-health and addiction care that works for all British Columbians.”
$236 over three years:
Budget 2023 provides more than $236 million over three years to create more services for young people, including crisis supports, culturally safe wraparound services, enhanced transition services and improved emergency room hospital-based care and discharge planning. This includes nearly $75 million for Foundry expansion and enhanced services.
“For young people and their families, it is easier to take that very difficult first step of asking for help when there is a Foundry in their community,” said Mitzi Dean, Minister of Children and Family Development.
“When a youth walks through the door, they get the wraparound, evidence-based care that Foundry BC has become known for, whether that be mental-health treatment, social services, peer support, primary and sexual health care or substance-use services. This announcement means even more young people across B.C. will have access to these vital services.”
The Foundry approach keeps “the whole of the young person in context”, said Dean today.
Expansion:
The Foundry expansion announced today builds on previous investments that supported the expansion of the Foundry network across the province and the creation of the Foundry virtual services for young people who are not able to access a centre.
There are 15 Foundry centres currently open, located in:
- Vancouver-Granville
- North Shore (North Vancouver)
- Campbell River
- Ridge Meadows
- Abbotsford
- Kelowna
- Prince George
- Victoria
- Penticton
- Terrace
- Comox Valley
- Langley
- Richmond and Cariboo-Chilcotin (Williams Lake)
- Sea to Sky (Squamish)
An additional eight new Foundry centres are in development in Burns Lake, East Kootenay (Cranbrook), Port Hardy, Surrey, Fort St. John, Tri-Cities, Kamloops and the Sunshine Coast.
Foundry’s provincial virtual services can be accessed from anywhere through the Foundry BC app, phone or virtually: https://foundrybc.ca/virtual/
Unwavering commitment:
“What makes Foundry’s vision so particularly unique is our unwavering commitment to not just provide wellness services to youth, but to really revolutionize the entire health and wellness landscape for young people”, said Karen Tee, associate executive director, Foundry BC.
“The well-being of our young people will ultimately determine the well-being of our society. With our eyes set to the future, we want to transform what it means for a young person to take charge of the quality of their life. This expansion is another step towards achieving our goal.”
Enhancing supports for young people living with mental-health and addiction challenges is an integral part of A Pathway to Hope, B.C.’s roadmap for building a comprehensive system of mental-health and addiction care for British Columbians.
===== RELATED:
No age restriction on tuition waiver for former youth in care (March 14, 2023)
BC expands mental-health, substance-use supports for more young people (February 2, 2023)
More cohesive system of supports for youth in care (March 15, 2022)
New government-funded app connects kids & caregivers with mental health supports (May 7, 2021)
===== ABOUT THE WRITER & ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Mary P Brooke is the editor and publisher of Island Social Trends as published daily at islandsocialtrends.ca.
Ms Brooke has been covering the news of politics, business, education and communities through a socioeconomic lens since 2008 on south Vancouver Island (previously as West Shore Voice News, and before that both Sooke Voice News and MapleLine Magazine).
Ms Brooke followed and wrote extensively about the COVID pandemic during 2020-2022. She has covered Sooke School District 62 (SD62) in-depth since 2014, and was an SD62 candidate in the October 2022 election cycle (SD62 Belmont Zone – Langford, Colwood, Metchosin, Highlands). She participates with the BC Legislative Press Gallery.
Among other qualifications, Ms Brooke holds a health sciences B.Sc., a university Certificate in Public Relations, and an industry certificate in digital marketing. In many ways head of her time, Mary Brooke’s company Brookeline Publishing House Inc won an innovative award from National Post Business in 2000 for launching an e-learning portal that ended up running for many years (1998 to 2012). She is mother to four now-adult children.