The Foundry: Holistic Healthcare for Our Youth
FOUNDRY, RIDGE MEADOWS
W: Sarah Stupar | P: Upper Left Photography
BACK IN 2007, a small group of psychiatrists working out of a hospital in downtown Vancouver initiated a new approach to healthcare for young people. The idea was essentially to integrate healthcare services and provide access to social services and health services under one roof. This integration, it was theorized, would help shift the focus of healthcare away from just treatment and onto prevention and early intervention. The hope was that it would help to provide young people with tools and support before their health problems became so severe that they would affect their lives or disrupt education and employment or family and social life. Originally called the Inner City Youth program, it later became known as the BC Integrated Youth Services Initiative as it expanded to other locations, before finally evolving into its current form as the “Foundry” in 2015. What started out as five locations to help youth in the Lower Mainland, spread onto the Island, up north into Prince George and Terrace, east into the Okanagan, and now, the Foundry is coming to Cranbrook. For many people who come here, the charm of the Kootenays lies in its isolation, its position in the wilderness and its distance from major urban areas. When it comes to health however, the isolation can be the difference between life and death, but being born in a rural area should not be a death sentence. Having to travel long distances for either physical or mental care is an experience that many in the Kootenays are familiar with, but hopefully now, with the commitment from the province to create a Foundry in Cranbrook, this experience will become a relic of the past. Along with eight other communities, Cranbrook has been pledged $1.2 million dollars from the Province in partnership
with the Ktunaxa Kinbasket Child and Family Services Society for the establishment and management of a Foundry health centre. “There is a lot of strength, knowledge and resiliency already in the community and in the youth and families that live here,” says Dale Handley, a manager in Service Implementation and Integration from the Foundry’s central office. “Trying to actually build off that is probably a key part of what’s going to be successful for each Foundry.” The Ktunaxa Kinbasket Child and Family Services Society has been active in the Kootenays since 1992 and was a natural fit for a project of this kind. It will oversee the establishment and management of the Foundry for the benefit of all citizens of the Kootenays, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. While the provincial government has committed $1.2 million to the project, it has asked the community to match that number (and a bit more)
32 / SUMMER 2021 / GO CRANBERLEY