Ontario Trillium Foundation Funding

 

New OTF Funding

THE YOUTH ENGAGEMENT ADVISORY HUB IS EXPANDING
Thanks to Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Resilient Communities Fund

We are pleased to share Wellkin was successful in securing the Resilient Communities Fund through Ontario Trillium Foundation. This grant will allow Wellkin, with guidance and oversight from its newly established Lead Agency Multi-Year Planning Steering Committee, to expand Wellkin’s Youth Engagement Advisory Hub (The Hub) in line with the Youth Wellness Hub Ontario (YWHO) model, which is based on substantial research and has been adopted as a key innovative model to filling in current gaps in the system through the provincial government’s Roadmap to Wellness: a plan to build Ontario’s mental health and addictions system.

Created by youth in partnership with Wellkin, The Hub is a space dedicated to youth wellness. It’s a place to connect with peers and to learn about community resources and supports. It is for youth aged 13 to 25 years in Oxford and Elgin Counties and due to COVID-19 precautions, it is currently being provided virtually every Thursday from 3:30 to 4:30 pm with the first half-hour focused on a wellness topic and the second half-hour structured around a social activity.

We will continue to offer existing programming provided through The Hub while working with the necessary community organizations, youth and families in Oxford and Elgin Counties to co-create the infrastructure to bring the right services to youth (and their families) at the right time and in the right place through dedicated human resources and program development dollars. Specifically, we want to use the existing virtual hub platform as an integrated location (i.e., one-stop-shop for mental health, addictions, primary care, vocational, housing) and create processes/pathways to allow for rapid and coordinated access to low-barrier services grounded in evidence-based interventions.

If you would like more information about this topic, please call Sophia Briard at 226-228-7597, or email sbriard@wellkin.ca.

Ontario Trillium Foundation logo

The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) is an agency of the Government of Ontario, and one of Canada’s leading granting foundations. OTF awarded $108 million to 629 projects last year to build healthy and vibrant communities in Ontario.