Our Values

Collaboration & Partnerships

• We seek to develop relationships with our youth and communities to increase awareness of the local youth mental health and substance use care crisis and co-develop integrated and youth/community-informed pathways to care.

• We seek to engage in meaningful intersectoral partnerships to facilitate innovative, equitable and collaborative service pathways, increase system-level support for youth and increase overall understanding of youth-friendly service delivery and components.

Authentic Youth Engagement & Co-Design

• We seek to meaningfully engage and empower young people in our community to have a voice in service design, governance, implementation and evaluation of services in our communities.

• We seek to ensure youth services are youth-friendly and meet youth needs and interests by collaborating with youth as co-designers and co-leaders.

• We seek to increase youth agency and health outcomes by authentically engaging youth in their care.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Indigenous Reconciliation

• We strive to create a safer, equitable, diverse, inclusive and decolonized organizational culture.

• We honour our communities by weaving anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, anti-racist and culturally sensitive language and behaviours into each product, communication and innovation.

• We seek low-barrier, fair and equal access to mental health services for all youth, especially youth who have experienced stigmatization and/or marginalization.

  Youth-Centred Care Pathways

• We seek to co-develop youth-centred services designed to respond to youth needs and increase youth access by ensuring non-stigmatizing environments, timely access, convenient location and youth-friendly hours.

• We strive to co-design youth-friendly, developmentally appropriate transitional aged care for children transitioning to youth and youth transitioning to early adulthood.

  Meaningful Impact & Knowledge Translation

• We strive to provide meaningful and impactful collaborative partnerships with youth and community members as we co-develop services designed to align with the specific identified needs of the community.

• We seek to interpret and translate knowledge and evidence-based research into innovative and effective youth-informed products, communication and service delivery pathways.

  Stewardship & Transparency

• We strive to maintain open and honest communication with youth, community and stakeholders to ensure transparent and fair practices and develop a respectful collective of stakeholders who work together to support youth in our communities.

• We honour our youth and communities and value our collective synergy in ensuring all youth in Huron, Perth, Grey, and Bruce have access to timely, youth-friendly services.

  Evidence-Informed Practices

• We value the lived and living experiences of youth, families and our community as evidence and seek to equitably include youth and family experiences as we co-design innovative continuums of care with youth.

• We support and seek to increase the implementation of evidence-based mental health interventions for youth in our rural communities.

  Continuous Improvement & Rigorous Evaluation

• We engage in extensive needs assessments and environmental scans to determine gaps in care pathways for youth to ensure we meet the needs of local populations.

• We strive to fully evaluate outcomes to ensure we meet our targets, enhance our accountability with our communities, funders and stakeholders and continually improve outcomes and services for youth wellness.

• We strive to learn, unlearn and relearn as we collaborate with local youth, communities and stakeholders.