The Canadian Collaborative Mental Health Initiative (CCMHI) completed Phase 1 of a highly successful 2-year Primary Health Transition Fund project in 2006. Through the creation of evidence-based research papers and a series of toolkits, CCMHI developed a compelling case for improving mental health care in the primary health care setting through interdisciplinary collaboration, including collaboration among health care providers, consumers and caregivers.
Through its members' organizations, CCMHI raised awareness of the benefits of collaborative mental health care and built enduring communities of interest committed to further efforts to improve mental health care.
Health Canada funded Phase 2 of CCMHI to ensure that Canadians with mental illness and their care providers have access to, and can benefit from, the knowledge generated through the CCMHI. Through a consultative process, the Steering Committee of CCMHI agreed that the best way to achieve broader uptake of the principles and practices of collaborative care was through the development of selective provincial collaborative teams. By working with the Charter members, the project team identified potential champions and leaders in mental health care and brought them together to test and refine the knowledge generated during Phase 1. Using three pilot sites, the relevance and utility of the toolkits was confirmed, and the opportunities and barriers for developing collaborative care practices at the provincial and regional level were better understood.
Click here to download a 4-page summary of the Canadian Collaborative Mental Health Initiative.