Infant and Early Mental Health Care Pathways

Welcome to the Infant and Early Mental Health Care Pathways initiative! In Canada, the journey to finding timely support for children from birth to six facing developmental challenges can often be unclear and challenging. The absence of navigable systems of care pathways for infant and early mental health (IEMH) means that many children may not receive the support they need until they enter the school system. Our initiative seeks to address this gap by creating clear pathways to ensure timely and appropriate support for children facing IEMH concerns. The IEMH Care Pathways Brief provides information on the background, research, and evaluation for this initiative.

• Developing community-guided and organizationally-supported IEMH Care Pathways
• Improving mental health trajectories through multi-sectoral collaboration
• Strengthening the implementation of culturally-guided interventions for diverse populations
• Catalyzing interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaborations to facilitate service transitions for families and reduce wait times
• Building and fostering implementation science research and knowledge mobilization
• Ensuring meaningful representation and participation of individuals who have historically faced barriers in research

The IEMH Care Pathways initiative is expected to be completed within 2-3 years and consists of 5 phases as outlined in the journey map below:

Download and view the IEMH Care Pathway Journey Map (PDF)

  Partners from across sectors are actively engaged throughout all project phases to:

1. Ensure the IEMH Care Pathways reflect each community’s needs and capacity
2. Promote community buy-in
3. Support the sustainability of long-term change

Below are examples of IEMH Care Pathway maps developed by various communities. These maps illustrate the streamlined process by which children, from birth to 6, who are experiencing mental health challenges or concerns can receive developmental screening and timely access to supports and interventions.

The map below highlights Ontario’s Pathways communities.

The Mental Health in the Early Years Implementation Science Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), financially supports the initiative, through a collaboration between IEMHP (The Hospital for Sick Children) and:

• Dr. James Reynolds’ team at Queen’s University in Kingston, ON
• The Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

The IEMH Care Pathways Team at IEMHP:

• Dr. Chaya Kulkarni, Director
• Hadir Ashry, Senior Project Manager
• Dr. Karys Peterson-Katz, Data and Evaluation Specialist
• Rup Patel, Project Coordinator

If you are interested in learning more or would like to implement IEMH Care Pathways in your community, contact the project coordinator, Rup Patel at rup.patel@sickkids.ca