(Ashley Lavallee-Koenig/rdnewsNOW)

By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

INTEGRATED SUPPORTS

Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence blazing a trail for youth mental health

May 17, 2024 | 1:36 PM

The Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence (SKCOE), a trailblazing facility offering integrated mental health support for youth, had its grand opening this week.

The building is complete and partly operational.

Boasting partners from strategic mental health care, client advocacy and support, and addictions counselling in one building, the facility’s novelty comes from its integration of services, creating wrap-around support for youth with complex mental health needs.

“For all those that have been a victim of child abuse, for the countless members of our community who struggle with the invisible pain of mental health and addiction issues, quite simply, we built this for you. It is for you that this centre exists, and it is our honour and privilege to walk alongside you as you reclaim your strength and your voice,” said Mark Jones, CEO of the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre (CACAC), which operates the SKCOE.

With three of their services already operational and the rest expected to follow by the end of summer, the minds behind the project gathered to celebrate the accomplishment with a ceremony and ribbon cutting on May 16.

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The facility resides on the main campus of Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP), a decision made not only from opportunity, but because it allows the centre to easily integrate research and data collection with the help of the school.

“The data and the applied research we need to collect is going to give the confidence to the ministers and the people that are in a leadership role in this space to make big decisions that are going to help shift the system,” says Sheldon Kennedy, a former NHLer who has publicly shared his lived experiences for many years.

The main floor is home to Alberta Health Services’ (AHS) Step Up Step Down program, a live-in therapy program for youth with complex support needs. Their former location had five bedrooms, while the new space has 16; though they will be starting with only 10 in operation. Construction is ongoing and should be complete by the end of summer.

Students receive three hours of class per day while staying in the facility. (Ashley Lavallee-Koenig/rdnewsNOW)

The second floor houses the Move Your Mood Studio, Central Alberta Sexual Assault Support Centre (CASASC), and Lindsey More Youth Mental Health and Addiction Hub.

The third floor is primarily used by the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre but will soon have discreetly accessible examination rooms for users of the Central Alberta Sexual Assault Response Team (CASART).

“To put it simply, at least now we don’t have to send our clients across town or call someone else. We can work with the other agencies in the building directly. Especially once they get a few things set upstairs, they won’t have to go to the hospital, they can do it all here,” shares Christi Albers-Manicke, a communications representative for CASASC.

The project is a feat of collaboration between four different ministries: infrastructure, children and family services, health, and mental health and addiction.

“We have a building, which is awesome, it’s phenomenal, but I think we don’t give enough credit to how extremely difficult it is to bring big systems together, and to me that’s the magic of the centre,” said Kennedy.

A primary goal of the facility is to reach kids early and prevent some of the hardships seen in the adult population, as Kennedy says more than 80 per cent of adults in treatment centres have disclosed early childhood abuse.

“When Sheldon Kennedy was the drunk, the laughing stock, the bad actor, (my friends) stuck with me and they believed in me; I think that’s what the CACAC is going to offer so many children and so many families — we’re going to believe in them and we’re going to show them the way forward,” he said.

The celebration included an open house of the building, which welcomed more than 600 visitors. Then there was a formal ribbon cutting with presentations by project leaders that saw 200 attendees.

L-R: Sheldon Kennedy, CACAC CEO Mark Jones, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, CACAC Board Chair Terry Loewen, Children and Family Services Minister Searle Turton, Infrastructure Minister Pete Guthrie, and friend of the CACAC, Quinn. (Ashley Lavallee-Koenig/rdnewsNOW)