VANCOUVER — Ahead of Bell Let’s Talk Day this Wednesday, the Bell-Graham Boeckh Foundation Partnership announced today a $1.5 million donation to St. Paul’s Foundation in support of Foundry “to continue to transform youth mental health in BC and share knowledge and best practices around Canada,” says a Bell Canada press release.
Foundry provides free health and wellness services to youth at its local centres across BC and online at foundrybc.ca.
The donation announced today “will help to bolster Foundry’s Research team and its Knowledge Translation and Exchange (KTE) team over the next three years to improve integrated health and social services for youth and their families and caregivers in BC and support other emerging Integrated Youth Services (IYS) initiatives around the country and beyond,” reads the press release.
This gift is part of the Bell-Graham Boeckh Foundation Partnership’s $10 million commitment to advance integrated youth mental health and wellness services across Canada through IYS hubs (which we wrote about here).
Combined, Bell and the Graham Boeckh Foundation have contributed more than $3 million in support to St. Paul’s Foundation, helping to build the Foundry provincial initiative, says the release.
“We are so grateful for the Bell-Graham Boeckh Foundation Partnership’s lifetime support of Foundry,” said Steve Mathias, Foundry’s executive director, in the press release.
“As we enter our seventh year, Foundry is at a pivotal moment in our organizational life cycle, with an extraordinary opportunity to translate and share our findings and learnings to benefit not only our network of centres and virtual services, but emerging IYS models across Canada and internationally. This donation is integral in moving us closer to our vision of transforming youth health and social services. Together, we are supporting youth and their families and caregivers in living a good life,” Mathias said.
“We’re very proud to support Foundry as they continue their important work to transform youth mental health in BC,” said Mary Deacon, chair of Bell Let’s Talk.
“The Bell-Graham Boeckh Foundation Partnership is committed to accelerating the delivery of mental health services for young people across Canada through Integrated Youth Services, so we are also particularly pleased to invest in enhancing Foundry’s capacity to advance pan-Canadian collaboration with IYS networks around the country, so that more young people and their families can get access to mental health services and supports in ways that best address their needs,” Deacon said.
For more information, please click here.
Photo supplied by Bell Canada.
