Mental Health Consultant

Extensive Needs Service (ENS) is a partnership between CHEO, Holland Bloorview and McMaster’s Children’s Hospital. ENS is a specialized support program to provide clinical services to children with extensive needs and their families. This includes, multidisciplinary assessment and individualized treatment to enhance capacity, reduce challenging behaviours and treating underlying health concerns.

These are children who – without this pathway – will experience frequent visits to emergency departments, avoidable acute care admissions, and repeat referrals to urgent or crisis services yet have exhausted other funded services. The successful candidate for this position will use an evidence-based, equity-focused, and trauma-informed lens to help improve the quality of life for these children, youth, and families.

This position with support families in the York Region through Children’s Treatment Network, located at 50 McIntosh Drive, Suite 235, Markham.

Salary range: $49.50-$51.44 per hour

Duties and Responsibilities :

• Assess nature and level of a child/youth’s mental health needs as well as strengths of the child/youth and family.
• Provide mental health consultation that is effective, well-coordinated, family-centered and responsive to the child/youth and family’s needs.
• Work with the child/youth and family to conduct risk assessments and to appropriately safety plan including providing consultation to support the plan to reduce and/or stabilize the identified need.
• Participate in the development of an inter-agency, inter-professional and cross-sectoral ENS plan that addresses the unmet needs for the child/youth and family.
• Provide intervention services as appropriate, to promote skill building and/or coping in alignment with service goal(s) for the client and/or caregiver.
• Contribute to consensus building with other relevant disciplines, to refine and coordinate the delivery of the ENS service elements.
• Ensure that planning for transition from ENS is included in the plan and actively discussed with the child/youth and family.
• Participate in a wrap-around team-based approach in the development and implementation of the service response.
• When applicable, work collaboratively with other mental health professionals involved with the child/youth to ensure roles and responsibilities are clearly identified and implemented and transitions for families are as smooth as possible.
• Help families navigate mental health systems and making appropriate referrals and connections.
• Administer formal evaluation procedures to gather data on the impact of the ENS intervention.

Qualifications :

• Master’s level education in social work or psychology and valid membership in the applicable regulated college
• Experience supporting children/youth with complex profile of needs including; neurodevelopmental conditions, acquired brain injury, mental health conditions and co-occurring chronic physical health conditions.
• Experience collaborating with team members from multiple disciplines including, ABA, nursing, psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language, coordinated service planners, etc.
• Strong assessment skills for identifying child, youth and family’s mental health strengths and needs across domains
• Exceptional interpersonal and relationship building skills
• Exceptional problem solving skills and solution focused communication skills that promote positive, productive and proactive dialogue that contributes to the successful implementation of the ENS plan
• Exceptional conflict management and mediation skills to cultivate a team-based approach
• Ability to effectively support families experiencing significant emotional distress
• Ability to identify risk situations requiring prompt action.
• Appropriate independence using strong judgement skills to access supervision as required
• Flexibility and adaptability to work within an evolving/changing system of service delivery
• Commitment to supporting diverse families in respectful and inclusive manner
• In depth knowledge of the broader service system for children and families, including crisis services and supports
• Computer literacy