Program Goals

The long-term goal of Child and Youth Mental Health (CYMH) is to partner with families and communities to improve mental health outcomes for children and youth in BC by:

• providing children and their families access to a basic continuum of timely, evidence-based mental health consultation, assessment and treatment services across the province
• ensuring services are coordinated across public health and primary care, early child development, schools, special needs, child protection and addictions services right into adult services
• promoting evidence-based services as the standard of care, backed up by training, education and monitoring
• providing new resources for early intervention programs dealing with serious mental illness
• reducing children's risk of developing mental illness through means such as public education and expert involvement across sectors
• building capacity in families and communities so they are better able to prevent and mitigate potential effects of harmful factors in a child's environment