Calgary Alliance Celebrates Major Win for Youth Mental Health Supports

At the end of June, the Calgary Alliance celebrated a huge win for Youth Mental Health Supports from their Provincial Government. Please join us in congratulating their Mental Health Research Action Team for the work they did to help take this big step towards their goals!

Read on to learn about the win from the perspective of the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good:

We are excited to learn this week from the Ministry of Education that $53 million will be going to support children and youth to recover from the pandemic over the next two years.

This includes:

Enhanced specialized assessments (up to $10 million per year for 2022-23 and 2022-24) which are focused on improving access to assessments by qualified professionals including speech language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists or psychologists.
A one-time extension to the 2021-22 COVID-19 mitigating Learning Disruption funding ($10 million for 2022-23);
A $3 million pilot program for Non-profit organizations to lead innovative school nutrition projects in 2022-23; and
A two-year, $10 million per year call for pilot project proposals specifically targeted to new, innovative, and collaborative approaches of mental health services and supports in schools.

Increased funding for mental health professionals and pilot projects to develop and test comprehensive and collaborative mental health strategies has been a major focus of our mental health work.

We want to say a big congratulations and thank-you to our Mental Health Research and Action Team, to everyone who has written a letter, signed our petition, met with leaders, worked to get support within their institution or supported this campaign in any way.

We also want to recognize and thank our provincial government for taking this important step.

We also recognize that this is one step towards improving the mental health of our youth. What is learned in the pilot projects needs to be turned into sustainable funding and strategies for all schools. We still need to reach the goal of one mental health professional per 1000 students and this needs to be executed in a way that improves the well-being of students, teachers, families and communities.