Visits to Canadian emergency departments by young adults with mental illness rose by 50% from 2007 to 2015. Too often, these patients leave without the support they need. Mount Sinai Hospital’s Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute (SREMI) is working to address this gap in partnership with Stella’s Place, a community leader in providing peer support to young adults with addiction and mental illness. Together the two organizations have created Pathway to Peers, an innovative model of care that will provide these patients with same-day or next-day access to the expertise of trained peer support workers who have lived-experience with mental health and substance abuse. In honour of World Mental Health Day, October 10, check out this short video where Dr. Bjug Borgundvaag, Director of SREMI and Mount Sinai’s lead on the project, and Asante Haughton, Peer Training and Development Lead at Stella’s Place explain the impact of Pathway to Peers.
