Dartmouth, NS — Children and youth in Dartmouth will soon have a new resource for mental health and addiction services with the opening of an IWK Health Centre clinic at Mic Mac Mall. The clinic, set to launch by the fall, will occupy an expanded space that formerly housed a Winners store.
The new facility will be staffed by approximately 40 professionals from the IWK Health Centre. Maureen Brennan, the overseer of these services, highlighted the diverse, multidisciplinary team available to patients.
“We’ll be offering a full suite of services by a large variety of mental health and addictions clinicians that include psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, youth care workers, recreation therapists, and child and adolescent psychiatrists,” Brennan said in an interview on Thursday.
The clinic will provide both individual treatment and group therapy sessions for children, youth, parents, and caregivers. This initiative marks the first time the IWK has established a clinic within a shopping mall, chosen for its convenient access.
“It makes sense that we locate clinics across all of HRM so that families will not have to come downtown to the IWK Health Centre to look for parking,” Brennan explained. “It’s very accessible, lots of parking, and it’s a real opportunity for us to create a therapeutic and trauma-informed space in a new way.”
The staff for the new clinic will include clinicians and support personnel from other IWK clinics in Halifax, Bedford, Lower Sackville, and Dartmouth, as well as new or recently hired employees. Brennan assured that there are no plans to close any of the existing sites.
“We’ll be looking at a few of those clinicians out of each of those offices and we’ll be recruiting into those new positions,” she said.
The search for a new space began in June 2020 when the hospital issued a public tender. After an initial unsuccessful attempt, the hospital hired a leasing agent who eventually secured the Mic Mac Mall site.
With the new clinic’s strategic location and comprehensive services, the IWK Health Centre aims to enhance access to essential mental health and addiction support for children and youth in the region.
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