CASA’s 40,000-square-foot, 20-bed facility in Fort McMurray will offer both day and residential mental health care services once it’s built.
Article content
A facility for children and teenagers facing complex mental health issues will open in Fort McMurray by fall 2027. The proponents of the building, CASA Mental Health, says the site will address critical shortages in mental health care in the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo region.
Advertisement 2
Article content
The Fort McMurray location is the first of its kind that CASA is opening. Bonnie Blakley, CEO of CASA Mental Health, says the Fort McMurray site will free space at their Sherwood Park location. Wait lists can last a year to 18 months, she said.
“A third of our beds are set aside for northern communities, which is not even remotely meeting the needs of what rural communities need right now,” said Blakley in an interview.
“Kids are coming to us from the north, and it’s not good for kids to have to travel that far and it’s not good for them to wait that long.”
The facility will be called CASA House, and offer day and residential programs. The day program offers youth therapy during the day and patients return home at night. The residential program is an overnight service for more intensive care.
Advertisement 3
Article content
The 40,000 square-foot, 20-bed building will offer long-term treatments, and includes an active role for families in the healing and therapy processes.
“If you have multiple medications and you’re doing different kinds of therapy, you need more of an integrated support. You can go to a hospital but the hospital isn’t really set up for that,” said Blakley.
“The problem we have is we haven’t really had this missing middle filled.”
Patients would be referred to CASA House by a family doctor. For prospective patients who do not have a family doctor, the organization is working on self-referrals or ways to connect patients with a physician that can help with referrals.
Blakley said there are plans to build additional youth facilities in Medicine Hat and Calgary. The Alberta government has committed $75 million to these projects, which must be matched by CASA Mental Health. A groundbreaking ceremony will be held once a location is selected for the Fort McMurray site.
Advertisement 4
Article content
Tany Yao, UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, said the centre will be “game-changing” for health care in Fort McMurray. Yao agreed the centre fills a growing local need for youth mental health, and hopes to see support for addictions treatment programs.
“This is a decent facility and something our community really needs,” he said in an interview.
“This facility will be absolutely phenomenal. I can’t praise it enough.”
CASA is also expanding its presence in Fort McMurray once the school year starts. Fort McMurray’s first CASA Mental Health Classroom is opening at St. Gabriel’s School this fall.
The program supports students between Grades 4 and 12 with complex mental health challenges. Students are offered psychiatric care and individual and group therapy to support a student’s recovery while supporting their educational needs.
The classroom will feature a full-time teacher helped by support staff that includes a mental health therapist and aide. Each classroom can support up to 12 students per cohort across a school district.
The Fort McMurray classroom is one of eight classrooms opening across Alberta in September, doubling the size of the program. Another four classrooms are opening in early 2025.
Get the news and events of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo in your inbox every Friday morning by signing up for our newsletter.
vmcdermott@postmedia.com
Article content