FAQ
How much will this facility cost?
An Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation fundraising campaign “Build Them Up” will work with the community to raise $50M to support the capital build as well as program and research enhancements.
What is the Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health?
AHS, in partnership with the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation is planning to build a stand-alone centre for child and adolescent mental health in Calgary.
Once built, the new facility will provide community-based mental health services to help ensure mentally healthy futures for children and adolescents in our community.
Why do we need a centre for child and adolescent mental health?
Once built, this facility will deliver mental health services in a community setting, helping to keep children and youth mentally healthy, and prevent hospital admissions. This community care delivery approach helps to free up much needed hospital space, and will offer more readily available mental health services in the community, closer to patients and families.
The new centre will provide a comprehensive continuum of coordinated, integrated, and seamless intervention services for youth suffering from acute mental health disorders, and their families.
Will this centre reduce wait times for mental health services for children and youth?
It is our goal that all of our clients have access to the services they need in a timely manner.
By offering these services in the community rather than a hospital setting, patients and their families will have better access to mental health services to help meet their needs.
What programs will be offered there?
The new facility will be home to a mental health walk-in service that will provide urgent addiction and mental health services for youth and their families, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. An intensive community treatment service will provide more intensive and ongoing mental health services with multiple individual, group and family appointments per week, reducing the need for acute hospitalization, and a day hospital program will provide support and therapy for youth who require intensive treatment after being discharged from hospital.
Will there be overnight stays?
No. Inpatient mental health beds for children and youth will remain at Alberta Children’s Hospital, Foothills Medical Centre and South Health Campus.
When will construction begin?
The prime consultant has been hired and their work is expected to get underway this spring. Construction is expected to begin in fall 2019.
When will it open?
Construction is expected to be complete in late summer 2022, with doors opening several months later.
Who will use this facility?
The Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health will support young people and their families with new and enhanced services, including specialized triage and the opportunity for immediate referrals to programs at the site.
How big will the facility be?
The centre is anticipated to be a three story structure, approximately 3,200 square meters in size that will feature a program area on each floor including walk-in services on floor one, intensive community/outpatient treatment on floor two, and the day hospital on the third floor.
Where will it be located?
The Centre will be built on vacant AHS owned land, adjacent to Youth Substance Use andMental Health Services in northwest Calgary, in the community of Hounsfield Heights – Briar Hill.