Interactive Discussion: A Constellation of Care: Crafting Community Mental Health Across a Continent

Synopsis

We’ll discuss the process of co-design with a Young Adult Council (YAC) who shared their lived experience to inform every aspect of the project from the programming through to the delivery of a completely reimagined historic warehouse space in the Queen West neighbourhood. Stella’s provides peer support for ages 16 to 29; a cohort that is often faced with challenges accessing mental health services for their unique needs, particularly as they transition from child/youth services to adult care under an entirely different provincial ministry. Stella’s was inspired through the experiences of one family as they sought ongoing support for a young adult post inpatient care. Realizing that many young adults were facing the same gap and often abandoning therapy, they sought to create effective programming with the YAC, researchers and clinical advisors that allows participants to seek out their peers in a setting that is the very opposite of ‘clinical,’ close to where they live, work and attend school all without any cost.

Over a 10-month planning, design and fast track construction process, we had dozens of workshop and meeting with front line peer support staff for a facility of 150 full time employees at Dauphin Crisis Center. The youth and adult observation units, staffed with both young people with lived experience as well as adults, were essential to crafting the experience of the space. From the welcoming but separate youth and adult behavioral health urgent care entrances to the observation lounge design, peer support drove design.

At the Aqqusariaq Nunavut Recovery Centre, Inuit in Nunavut seeking to address generational trauma and care in their community have developed a one-of-a-kind model of family inpatient care lead by a Cultural and Lived Experience Advisory Council (CLEAC). The programming and design was shaped with the purpose of reconnecting a community through culturally-contextual healing in a “Made in Nunavut” model of care.