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An Open Area project in Val-d’Or to improve young people’s access to health care

This is the Open Area project which aims to facilitate access to health care for young people who are not used to entering the traditional health network.

The decision to set up the service in Val-d’Or was taken by the CISSS AT following a recent survey of 800 young people and parents in the region and a consultation of more than 550 network stakeholders. health and community services.

According to the assistant director of the youth program for the social services component at the CISSS-AT, Tommy Guillemette, it will be up to young people to determine the type of services they want to receive and in what environment they will be given.

Young people must take the main place that belongs to them to determine what they want to have as services, how they want to receive them and in what type of environment. And we do not want to reproduce what is already being done in other organizations in the field.

A quote from:Tommy Guillemette

According to the CISSS AT, the new structure could mobilize up to 9 stakeholders.

In the priorities of young people, what emerges enormously is access to several services under the same roof with service hours that will be adapted. Hours that will go until 8 or 9 in the evening, weekend hours. One of the aspects they mentioned to us is that when I introduce myself, I need to have an answer there, not a meeting in a week., explains Tommy Guillemette.

Young people ask us to be able to use certain virtual technologies, to be able to meet someone if they cannot come to the clinic. To have a certain flexibility in mobility, he adds.

Also in the priorities of young people, what emerges a lot are the needs in terms of youth mental health. We have an aspect on physical and sexual health that came out of it and addiction services. Also the types of interveners, the demand of young people for the moment is to have psychosocial and mental health services. They want to establish collaboration with other services that exist and to be able to be well networked. An important aspect in [l’octroi] services is to go more towards supporting young people than to direct them through complex trajectories where there will be bureaucracy, adds Tommy Guillemette.

He specifies that services will be given in the municipalities of Malartic and Senneterre.

There are many things to do before the services can be deployed in a concrete way in the population. Open space will not be attached to an establishment in the health network, adds Tommy Guillemette.

According to the CISSS AT, there is no official guarantee that the service will be implemented elsewhere in the region.

However, the Val-d’Or clinic will be accessible to young people from all over Abitibi-Témiscamingue, insists Tommy Guillemette.

The government launched the Open Space project in 2018. Three pilot projects were first launched in the North of the Island of Montreal, Laval and Sept-Îles.

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