Toronto Autism Service Network

In 2020-21, we gathered with six other organizations to form a new collaborative partnership – Toronto Autism Services Network. Our partners at Geneva Centre for Autism, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Kerry’s Place Autism Services, Lumenus Community Services, SAAAC Autism Centre, Strides Toronto have come together with a unique vision – build an efficient and effective, integrated system of care. We believe that a well-integrated and coordinated system of care will enhance client experiences, improve outcomes, offer continuity of care options and develop capacity and efficiencies across the children’s service system. In December 2020, the ministry released calls for proposals to deliver the new Ontario Autism Program components. Surrey Place stepped up to guide the newly formed network, creating successful collaborative responses to these calls for proposals. As such, Surrey Place has been endorsed as the lead applicant for each of the submission – Caregiver Mediated Early Years, Entry to School, and Urgent Response Services.

Lac Seul

Surrey Place played an important leadership role in ensuring that clinical services are available in remote and Indigenous communities. Prior to March 2020, services were provided both virtually and in person during monthly trips to Lac Seul in northern Ontario. Starting in March 2020, due to the impact of COVID-19, the team transitioned to a completely virtual model of service delivery and extended our virtual service offerings to new areas including virtual assessment.

A particular strength of the Lac Seul clinical team has been their flexibility in how they provide service to meet the unique needs of the communities and clients they serve. Their flexibility and ongoing commitment in developing creative ways to provide students with access to service despite disruptions in school attendance, has reduced barriers to service.

With the consistent change in teachers and their positions, especially since COVID-19, relationships continuously needed to be built and maintained. As such, the clinical team prioritized being available for school staff through email, text, in person meetings or virtually to continue to foster these relationships. The increased communication and interprofessional nature of our care has led to better student outcomes.

Building trust and establishing relationships within the Lac Seul community continues to be the key ingredient to implement our work and provide resources. As a result, Surrey Place actively identified local connections within the medical community. These interprofessional relationships have been pivotal to enhancing student care.

Unfortunately, suicide safety concerns have been raised by educators, families and other practitioners in the community. With no safety process in place, we saw a need to create a plan to ensure that educators who are highly involved in their students’ lives, are well-equipped to support their students. We developed a formalized system for suicide safety planning to aid service providers at the beginning signs of risk. This system has helped respond effectively in crisis, to bring in appropriate crisis supports, and to be able to maintain positive relationships with all parties involved. A training video was also created to help facilitate the safety plan and give people the tools on how to ask important questions when evaluating a child’s safety. This safety planning system is now being used in the schools of Lac Seul to support the mental health needs of students.

Children’s Urgent Response

Surrey Place identified a service system gap that highlighted the lack of services available to caregivers who were facing a need for an urgent response service. Caregivers had been using emergency services that were not suited to support their child or were engaging with child welfare to meet their needs. Surrey Place led several meetings over the course of 2020 to identify service pathways with child welfare. These meetings resulted in two memorandum of understanding, placing a coordinated service planning staff at Children’s Aid Society Toronto and Catholic Children’s Aid Society. The work led by Surrey Place resulted in a larger community engagement with partners across Toronto. Through this community engagement, the need to develop a children’s urgent planning table was identified as a shared goal. The engagement process grew to include multiple community partners including members from the Surrey Place Parent Advocacy Group. Over the course of one year, the Children’s Urgent response Consultation (URC) model was established and launched as a six-month pilot in January 2021. The pilot was successful and is continuing to run to this day. In addition to addressing the children’s service system gap using a collaborative and community-centered approach, these leadership efforts have fostered and expanded partnerships with community agencies across the children’s system sector.