Left to Right - Heather Fedy, Director Mental Health Operations, Lutherwood; Mary-Jo Shearer, Manager Donor Development, Lutherwood Child and Family Foundation; John Colangeli, CEO, Lutherwood; Chris Sellers, Director Lutherwood Child and Family Foundation; David Black, Commercial Account Executive, Vice President Commercial Insurance, CIG; Mary D’Alton, Executive Director, The Cowan Foundation.
The Cowan Foundation is pleased to support Lutherwood by way of a $50,000 donation towards their Emergency Department Diversion Team (EDDT) Project Pilot in Waterloo Region.
Grand River Hospital (GRH) and Lutherwood partnered to pilot a solution to address excessive wait times for child and youth mental health care at hospital emergency departments. The program diverts children and youth from the ER and ensures appropriate community services are provided. Respite beds and support are provided at Lutherwood’s Safe Haven Youth Services, and for those who have been discharged by GRH’s Child and Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatry unit but require further support, transition beds are provided at Lutherwood’s Children’s Mental Health Centre. In turn, ER wait times are shortened and appropriate mental health care is provided to children and youth.
With initial funding for the pilot provided by Waterloo Wellington LHIN, the program has seen great success since being implemented in November 2018. Due to government health care funding changes, the pilot was in jeopardy, but can now be completed due to donations made by The Cowan Foundation and other community partners, with the end goal of securing permanent government funding and the opportunity to replicate the program across the province.
