The Community Alliance: A community-school-university partnership to explore mental health and addiction services to support youth and young adults.

Bishop, Lisa and Darcy, Stephen and Druken, Melissa and Bethune, Cheri and Jordan, Peter (2013) The Community Alliance: A community-school-university partnership to explore mental health and addiction services to support youth and young adults. In: CU Expo 2013, June 12-15, 2013, Corner Brook, NL, Canada. (Submitted)

	[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Presentation Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (725kB) [English] PDF - Presentation Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. (Original Version)

Abstract

Memorial University of Newfoundland and a small urban community are collaborating on a community-based research project to study mental health and addictions (MH&A) in youth and young adults. Clinicians at the health centre noticed an increased prevalence of more severe cases of MH&A amongst youth and young adults in the community. For example, this included young people with undiagnosed mental health problems, youth facing problems with the law, and families overwhelmed by narcotic addictions. The clinicians then engaged the community board to collaborate on a strategy to help identify the extent of the problem and to foster community attention around this matter. In this process, a Community Alliance of the three organizations within the community emerged which included the community board, the local school and the university supported health centre. This demonstrates a true community-university partnership and transition to action. The Community Alliance chose a variety of methods to gather information and understand the problem. This included community information sessions, posters, and a needs assessment which included a survey of the youth, and focus groups of community members. The panel discussion will share the development of the Community Alliance from the perspectives of the partners and describe the methods used to conduct a needs assessment in the community. As part of our knowledge translation efforts, there will discussion about the continued collaboration between the community, school and university, and engagement of various stakeholders. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a tailored MH&A program for this community using a coordinated community-based strategy to achieve long-term benefits on population health and well-being.

Actions (login required)

View Item