In Ontario, an estimated 28,000 children and adolescents are waiting for counselling and therapy services, with an average wait of 78 days (Children’s Mental Health Ontario [CMHO], 2020). ). At Kinark Child and Family Services, the wait times tend to be longer, with the average stay in counselling and therapy services to be 320 days (10.5 months) once clients enter service. As such, Kinark has implemented various waitlist management strategies, one including adhering to the evidence-based “doses” of treatment. While our DBT, group therapies, and SNAP treatments maintain treatment duration standards, our individual CBT therapy services tend to extend far beyond what the evidence suggests is required. This presentation will describe how Kinark has implemented “Time-Limited CBT.” Evaluation framework that measures quality of CBT practice, client outcomes, and impact on service numbers will also be presented.
Learning Objectives
How to service more clients and reduce waitlists by limiting the “dose” of CBT to less than 20 sessions.
Presenters:
Laurel Johnson (Kinark Child and Family Services)
Dr. Laurel Johnson is a child and adolescent psychologist and Clinical Director of the Child and Youth Mental Health program at Kinark Child and Family Services. Dr. Johnson has experience with complex children’s mental health needs in community, forensic, and hospital settings. Dr. Johnson oversees all clinical practices within the community-based Child and Youth Mental Health programs and has led the adoption and implementation of evidence-based and standardized assessment and intervention practices across both the community mental health and forensic services at Kinark.
Bravina Kuni (Kinark Child and Family Services)
Dr. Kuni is a child and adolescent psychologist and Clinical Lead at Kinark Child and Family Services in the York area program.
