On October 31, 2023, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Kenora celebrated the launch of its second mobile mental health and addictions clinic bus, bringing services to even more people in the community.
Mobile mental health and addictions clinics aim to provide early intervention. Their goal is to increase access to mental health and addictions services in unserved and underserved areas and where possible to link clients to local community supports. They are also focused on reducing the need for higher intensity support or crisis intervention in a culturally competent and safe manner.
CMHA Kenora’s multidisciplinary team includes mental health and addictions services providers, appropriately trained nurses, access to a psychiatrist, case manager and service navigator. The clinic offers intake and brief services, referrals to existing services, and psychiatric support and follow-up.
“Since the launch of our first mobile mental health and addictions Clinic in 2022, we have been able to serve 84 individuals,” said CMHA Kenora CEO Sara Dias, “Being mobile, the clinic helps reduce the need for people having to travel to find services by meeting more clients in more places. We look forward to supporting more people in our community when and where they need help.”
Working with community partners, CMHA Kenora provides services to the following communities:
- Sioux Narrows
- Nestor Falls
- Asubpeechoseewagonog Netum Anishinabek – Grassy Narrows First Nation
- Migisi Sahgaigan First Nation – Eagle Lake First Nation
There are five mobile mental health and addictions clinics in Ontario overseen by the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence at Ontario Health. These clinics provide education and short-intervention psychotherapy to clients. Since the program was initiated, mobile mental health and addictions clinics have provided services to over 1269 clients and 273 people have received education sessions (province-wide, as of September 30, 2023).
The Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence also facilitates bi-weekly meetings about operations for all mobile mental health and addictions clinics in Ontario. This community of practice enables the sharing of best practices, lessons learned and questions concerning operations. The Centre of Excellence staff also provide programs with a provincial quarterly data summary. This summary helps programs see the provincial summary of the data on client volumes relative to the data in their own organization.
Mobile mental health and addictions clinics expand the reach of provider organizations. The ability to deliver mental health and addiction services through mobile clinics increases access to care and provides services in areas that might not have had support.