What to Expect as a New Path Client

Welcome to New Path Youth and Family Services. We are pleased that you are interested in receiving service from our agency and we would like to give you information about what you may expect from us during your involvement.

New Path is a multi-service agency providing children’s mental health and youth justice services. Our children’s mental health program works with children, adolescents and their families and is funded through the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services funds our youth justice programs.  Our offices are in many communities throughout Simcoe County. We provide a range of services to families with a child or adolescent 18 years of age or younger who has a social, emotional, or behavioural problem occurring at home, in school or in the community. New Path is licensed by the Ministry of Health and is accredited by the Canadian Centre for Accreditation

Healthy, thriving, and connected communities that support personal growth and wellbeing.

Through leadership and partnerships, New Path Youth & Family Services ensures that children, youth, and their families in Simcoe County have integrated, accessible, innovative, quality mental health services when and where they need them.

New Path offers a range of services including: Quick Access Counselling Clinic, individual, family and group counselling, in-home services, outreach services to adolescents, school-based support and counselling, multi-disciplinary consultation, live in treatment services and youth justice programs.

New Path helps children and youth from birth to age 18 and their families achieve mental health and wellness. Service delivery is offered from a client centered, strengths based holistic perspective. New Path collaborates with the client, their family, and our community partners to develop unique, personalized assessment and treatment plans.

Family and Youth Engagement at New Path means families and staff work together in partnership, having active and equal roles in decision making at the individual, organizational and system planning levels.  New Path recognizes the expertise that youth/families bring and are dedicated to creating a culture where youth/families meaningfully partner and participate as self-experts, utilizing their strengths and experiences to advocate for positive change that meets their unique needs.

Our staff and consultants include professionals from social work, child and youth work, education, recreation, psychology, psychiatry, and youth justice.

New Path serves people of any racial, ethnic, social, economic, linguistic, religious, or spiritual background and sexual orientation. Fairness and equity are integral to the service we provide, and diversity is respected and welcomed.  We will consult with you about your diverse needs and work to ensure those needs are met.

We provide service to anyone with a disability in a manner that promotes and respects dignity, independence, integration, and equal opportunity. Should you require any kind of accessible services, such as printed reports in a different format, having a support person or service animal attend sessions, or you need an assistive device, please talk to your case manager.

New Path is a designated health information custodian under the Personal Health Information Act (PHIPA) and complies with all PHIPA regulations. New Path collects personal health information about you and your child/youth to provide the most appropriate service to meet your needs.

New Path’s Privacy Statement describes in detail New Path’s commitment to upholding your rights and our responsibilities related to the privacy of your personal health information, giving informed consent and choices for accessing your personal health information. Your worker will be happy to answer any questions you may have on this important piece of information.

Once you contact New Path, a record will be created to contain your information. Reports on your progress are written according to a schedule set by the program or service you are participating in. Your worker will explain what you can expect. All reports are kept in your file, and you have the right to see them at any time.  To do so, please ask your case manager. Your file is kept in a secure location at New Path. A copy of your record is kept for 10 years after you finish your work with us and then an electronic version is kept until 10 years after your 18th birthday. At that time, your electronic file is deleted. However, we always keep a record of your name, date of birth, when you received service with us and the name of the program with which you were involved.

Your confidentiality will be respected and under regular circumstances we require your written consent to share your information. All our staff, students and volunteers sign a confidentiality agreement when they begin work with New Path and as employees of New Path are bound by legislation to uphold your right to privacy. However, when required by law, information must be released with or without your permission. Under the laws associated with the Duty to Report we are bound to disclose information (e.g., Police or Child Welfare):

• If you tell us that a child under 18 years has been or is being abused or neglected.
• If anyone is at risk of being harmed or of harming others.
• if your records are subpoenaed for court

As an accredited children’s mental health centre, New Path is dedicated to meeting standards of practice set by the Canadian Centre on Accreditation (CCA). Every four years New Path goes through a re-accreditation process to confirm that our work continues to meet these high standards. We collect, use, and disclose (meaning share) your health information as part of this review.

All requests for service are made via attendance at our Quick Access Counselling Clinic. At the Quick Access Counselling Clinic, you will obtain service when you need it, and this may include strategies to assist you in the challenges that brought you to New Path.  With our Quick Access Child and Youth Mental Health Clinic, and our Brief in three services, we are endeavouring to get service to you in a timely and responsive manner, keeping waiting time to a minimum. If you are required to wait for service, you will be contacted at least every three months to update any change in information and confirm your status on our wait list. We know that it is difficult to wait for service. At any time during a wait, you can attend a Quick Access Child and Youth Mental Health Clinic to see a counsellor.

We do our best to offer quality service but if a problem arises, we want to resolve it with you. Our complaint process may be utilized at any time during your involvement with New Path.

Should you wish to register a complaint, the following guidelines are meant to support you to voice your concern and get a quick resolution.

1. If possible, raise your concern with your worker first.
2. If you are not satisfied with the outcome, contact the worker’s supervisor.
3. If you wish you may contact our Director of Services with your concern. Following discussion, you will receive a letter outlining the results of your conversation.
4. If your concern is still not resolved, you may contact the Chief Executive Officer.
5. If your concern is still not resolved, you may contact the Chair of the Board of Directors.
6. If at this step there is still no resolution, you may contact the Ministry of Health Supervisor (your worker will give you the name and number).
7. Should resolution still not occur, the Ontario Ombudsman is available at: 1-800-263-1830 to assist you.

If the complaint relates to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal health information that New Path has on file, you have the right to contact New Path’s Privacy Officer at privacy@newpath.ca or 705-733-2654 ext. 522, or you may contact the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario at 1-800-387-0073 as indicated in the Privacy Statement that was given to you when you first came to New Path. You can also ask your worker for more information about this.

There is no charge to families for counselling. In most group programs, New Path does utilize evidence-based manuals.  If the program you are involved with uses one of these manuals, we will let you know the cost. If you can contribute some or all the cost of the manual, we thank you. However, we understand that everyone’s financial circumstances are different. Inability to pay for an evidence manual will not impact the service delivered to you. Some groups may also charge a fee to cover the cost of meals, snacks, and outings. Information regarding fees is available in program pamphlets. Inability to pay does not limit access to service.

When families are engaged in services, there is a stronger sense of co-development and collaboration on the path to positive change. This path can be difficult and challenging at times; engagement ensures the on-going support of all family members when working towards a common goal.

You are an important partner in the service that we provide, and you will be involved in planning and reviewing the service that we offer you. Your worker will ask you to help develop goals and a direction for service when you first attend a Quick Access Child and Youth Mental Health Clinic. If you are involved in other services, after the Quick Access Counselling Clinic, your Counsellor will talk to you about the length and type of service you will receive. You will be asked to review and sign reports and you will receive a copy of each report unless you indicate that you do not want one. If counselling continues, you will be asked to review progress toward your goals and your feedback and comments will be included in your reports. Your goals will be changed as required. As the end of counselling approaches, supports will be discussed with you and you will be involved in planning for this transition.

Making the decision to seek counselling services at an organization such as New Path can be difficult. There are a number of risks and benefits we recommend you consider before deciding what is right for you and your family.

Risks:

•   It can be difficult to talk about the issues you might be having.
•   You and your family may experience a range of emotions during counselling that you may not be used to expressing.
•   You may also experience setbacks as you and your family work on doing things differently.
•   There may be periods of confusion, disagreement and even a feeling of hopelessness about things changing.
• Change is hard, even when it is positive change.

Benefits:

•  Counselling can help you achieve your goals that may include positive changes in behaviour, relationships, coping skills and understanding each other better.
•  We use evidence-based and evidence-informed practices that have been proven to be beneficial for people experiencing challenges similar to yours.
• You may notice you feel better, are able to get along better with others at home, school, the community, and the workplace.

You will be provided with a case manager who will coordinate your service while you are involved with New Path. If you are involved with more than one worker only one will be in the role of case manager. Your case manager will collaborate with you to orient you to the service, schedule meetings, facilitate regular communication, discuss, and access resources, and help to ensure your service needs are met in the most efficient and effective means possible.

To ensure the best possible service, we may ask your permission to have a consultation meeting with a psychiatrist or psychologist. As well, a worker may request that their supervisor or another team member join you for a session. You have the right to get clarification of the purpose of these consultations and to decline the request.

New Path offers placement opportunities for students to learn professional skills. These students are from recognized colleges and universities and are trained to become workers in agencies such as ours. The students are supervised by trained staff from New Path and follow the same rules of confidentiality as staff.

Many dedicated individuals with unique skills and talents volunteer at New Path. Before working with clients, they undergo a screening and selection process and once they begin volunteering they receive regular supervision.  Volunteers are bound by the same confidentiality expectations as our staff.

Occasionally we request to audio, video, or record meetings with you. On occasion we may seek your permission to include other staff, students, or volunteers in meetings with you. This helps to ensure the best possible service for you and helps staff and/or students develop their skills. Your worker, their supervisor and other helpful team members involved in your service may view the electronic recording. Participating in this is voluntary on your part and we require your written permission to do so. If you are not comfortable with this, please let your worker know. The service you receive will not be affected by your refusal.

We recognize that on occasion you may have to cancel an appointment and we would appreciate a call notifying us in advance when this happens. If cancellations become a pattern, this will be discussed with you.

If you miss appointments without calling to cancel, this will be discussed with you. If you miss an appointment twice in a row without contacting your worker, we will reach out to you. If we do not hear from you, you will receive a letter informing you that your file has been closed. New Path must respond to families in need who are waiting for service and therefore we cannot keep families on our caseload who do not attend sessions and do not inform us. Should this occur, you are welcome to attend a Quick Access Child and Youth Mental Health Clinic if you require further assistance.

During regular business hours if your child or family is having a service-related emergency you should contact your Case

Manager. If they are unavailable, you may request to speak to their supervisor. New Path does not provide after-hours crisis service. For emergency services please call the after-hours mental health crisis line for Simcoe County at 1-888-893-8333.

New Path is committed to offering programs of high quality that meets your needs. At various times throughout your involvement, we may ask you for feedback on the services you are receiving. This may be done by having you rate progress towards your goals; by participating in a feedback interview; completing a client satisfaction questionnaire, attending a parent/youth advisory meeting or by follow up after service is complete. This is valuable information that we review and summarize (without your name) and report back to our staff, Board of Directors, our funders and to the public at large. We use this information to improve our services. New Path may also participate in Research projects aimed at evaluating our programs and services. In these instances, New Path is bound by our policy that states that any research involving clients must meet ethical standards that are reviewed by an Ethics Review Board. In all cases of formal research involving our clients, written consent to participate is required.

New Path is committed to offering programs of high quality that meets your needs. At various times throughout your involvement, we may ask you for feedback on the services you are receiving. This may be done by having you rate progress towards your goals; by participating in a feedback interview; completing a client satisfaction questionnaire, attending a parent/youth advisory meeting or by follow up after service is complete. This is valuable information that we review and summarize (without your name) and report back to our staff, Board of Directors, our funders and to the public at large. We use this information to improve our services. New Path may also participate in Research projects aimed at evaluating our programs and services. In these instances, New Path is bound by our policy that states that any research involving clients must meet ethical standards that are reviewed by an Ethics Review Board. In all cases of formal research involving our clients, written consent to participate is required.

You may find it helpful to discuss your situation with other parents who are experiencing similar concerns. New Path encourages local parent support groups, and we offer resources and other assistance to these groups as needed.

New Path offers a Better Together peer to peer support group for parents/caregivers the fourth Monday of every month from 7pm to 8:30pm in-person or virtually. Please email  familyengagement@newpath.ca for more information.

Parents for Children’s Mental Health is a provincial organization that seeks to support, educate, and empower families whose children are struggling with mental health concerns. The local Simcoe County Parents for Children’s Mental Health Support group can be contacted at 705-726-8861 extension 6634 or at simcoecounty@pcmh.ca

In addition to being involved in your child’s treatment, you may also wish to become involved in other aspects of our agency such as volunteering, fund-raising, attending parent/youth advisory meetings, participating in special events and other opportunities that may arise from time to time. We encourage your involvement and if you are interested in any of these options, please let your case manager know.