A local organization is hopeful the government will follow through with its promise to boost funding for Children's Mental Health Services.
Chatham-Kent Children's Services Executive Director Stephen Doig says funding for Children's Mental Health Services has basically flat-lined for the last seven to ten years.
"The announcement from the Wynne government of a commitment of a 5% increase to the core services provided by children's mental health was certainly well received by all of the children's mental health agencies in Ontario," he explains.
Doig says last week's funding announcement from the Liberals could really help the organization.
"For Chatham-Kent Children's Services, the 5% increase would certainly allow us to continue the services that we have in place now, as well as increase some of the service delivery that we would be able to provide," he explains.
Doig says the organization provides services to children and families dealing with anxiety, bullying, and mental health issues. He says a social worker is located at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and responds with the emergency physicians to threats of suicide and major depression. Support services are also provided to daycares throughout the municipality.
According to Doig, four contract staff positions were cut this year.
"Because of the lack of increased funding for children's mental health, we were in a situation this year of having to not renew four of those contracts in order to submit a balanced budget to the ministry," he says.
However, Doig says these cuts won't affect current services.
"We have a full-time compliment of staff who provide services ongoing and then from time to time we are also providing those services using contract staff," explains Doig. "The contract staff, although they do provide core service delivery, we're able to continue to provide the same level of services with our full-time staff."
Doig says the organization is confident that the government will follow through with its 5% funding increase commitment, regardless of the outcome of the election.
"We're really pleased to see that the ministry has finally recognized that the Children's Mental Health Services are going to require additional funding," he says. "We are very hopeful that those funds will arrive soon."
*With files from Matt Weverink
