Supporting Children and Youth with Complex Needs to Achieve Better Life Outcomes
News and Events
February 1 – 7 is Eating Disorders Awareness Week
February 1, 2024 – Eating disorders affect people of all genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic class, abilities, races, and ethnic backgrounds. Knowing this, eating disorder groups across Canada come together each year from Feb 1 – Feb 7 to commemorate Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) with a national week of action focused on educating the public about eating disorders.
Kinark and Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores) recently announced that they are working collaboratively to expand community-based Outpatient Adolescent Eating Disorder Services in order to meet the needs of East Region clients and families, bridge the step-down care gap from hospital to community, and avoid hospitalization for those clients requiring less intensive interventions. Our new team is doing a terrific job to get the new program off the ground and expand our mental health response to kids and families.
Enhancing Access to ABA for Rural, Remote, and Underserved Families
January 15, 2024 – Many thousands of families across Ontario experience lengthy gaps in service as they sit on waitlists and struggle to find providers close to home. The expansion of our virtual services is a necessary next step to ensure we continue to meet the needs of families in rural and remote communities, as well as those who struggle to find providers close to home or simply prefer to receive services virtually.
Kinark Child and Family Services announces expansion of autism services and locations, increasing access for families in need of immediate support
October 30, 2023 – Amidst a growing demand from Ontario families for increased access to autism programs and services, Kinark Autism Services, a division of Kinark Child and Family Services, today announced the opening of two new centres and expanded access to a wide range of programs and services, including home-based and virtual care, to help address immediate needs for children and families living with autism.
Kinark Child and Family Services announces Board of Directors appointments
October 23, 2023 – Kinark Child and Family Services is pleased to announce the appointment of Sharon Cochran as our new Chair of the Board of Directors. Cochran, formerly the Vice Chair, joined the Kinark board in 2018. The board has also appointed three new board members to join the group of dedicated volunteers who devote their time and energy to support Ontario’s most complex kids.
Adolescent Outpatient Eating Disorder services now accepting referrals
July 31, 2023 – Teams from Kinark and Ontario Shores will work together to provide stepped-care model of outpatient support for adolescents with eating disorders, meeting the needs of each youth receiving services. As clients move from in-hospital treatment at Ontario Shores, Kinark will work with the adolescents and their families to provide outpatient support in the community. This partnership will ensure that the care stays consistent and moves patients smoothly from more-intensive to less-intensive levels of service.
Leadership in Child and Youth Mental Health
We are proud to be Lead Agency for child and youth mental health in the service areas of York, Durham, and Haliburton/Kawartha Lakes/Peterborough. We are committed to supporting child and youth mental health and collaborating with our community partners to strengthen the sector in order to improve outcomes for children and families.