The Canadian Mental Health Association of Windsor-Essex and Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare want to improve mental health and addictions care in the community.
The groups unveiled a plan Wednesday morning after hosting a series of roundtable discussions with local residents and community leaders last year.
Officials identified three main areas of concern – housing and homelessness, psychiatry support and how to help children and youth transition into the adult support system.
“It's really about bringing leaders together to better co-ordinate the system, to communicate more directly so that we can stitch this together into something that is more streamlined and seamless,” says Claudia den Boer, the CEO of the local branch of the CMHA.
To address some of the concerns, den Boer says two psychiatrists will start later this summer.
Health officials are also calling for more affordable housing to be built.
Dr. Sonja Grbevski, the Vice President for Brain and Behaviour Health at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, says they also want to see a hub for youth.
“It would be a facility where there would be living skills available teaching individuals how to cook, how to manage money,” says Dr. Grbevski. “So you would be looking at a whole comprehensive approach on how one can live a healthy life as they would define it.”
