MaryAnn Notarianni, Ontario Centre for Excellence in Child and Youth Mental Health
Hosted by: OPEN – Research to Practice Hub (CFECFW)
Date: 24 October 2019 Location: Multicultural Hub
Background
MaryAnn Notarianni leads the Ontario Centre for Excellence’s quality improvement and youth and family engagement services for Ontario’s community-based child and youth mental health sector. MaryAnn has spent 15 years working in mental health, public health policy and community development, leading initiatives in e-mental health, youth suicide prevention, indigenous health promotion and knowledge mobilization.
Josianne Fernandez co-presented with MaryAnn. She is a Youth Advisor at the Ontario Centre for Excellence and works directly with the Youth Advisory Council, as part of the YWHO team supporting youth engagement initiatives provincially and locally.
The Ontario Centre for Excellence in Child and Youth Mental Health supports Ontario child and youth mental health agencies, communities and decision makers to help young people in our province develop in ways that expand their future opportunities and ensure lifelong mental health. The Centre’s core goals are to mobilize knowledge and improve quality across Ontario’s child and youth mental health sector.
Presentation – Overview
The meaningful engagement of youth and families can have significant positive impacts on service experience and outcomes in child and youth mental health. MaryAnn Notarianni and Josianne Fernandez shared the journey of the Ontario Centre of Excellence in Child and Youth Mental Health to advance youth and family engagement practices across the sector through co-developing quality standards and corresponding implementation and measurement tools.
This session provided an overview of the Ontario context for child and youth mental health, a brief history of building capacity for engagement in the province and reflections on emerging trends and opportunities. As improvements have been made in engagement practices programmatically and organizationally, massive system changes and practical challenges have created roadblocks for consistent, high-quality engagement, particularly at the system level.
Resources to review: