Youth room opens at Complex

By Mark Ribble

Youth seeking help with mental health issues now have a local office to visit inside the Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre.

Maryvale, a long-standing accredited children’s mental health treatment centre serving Windsor-Essex youth and their families, has recently opened a satellite office inside the complex.

The office will be known as the Abraham Orthodontics Youth Room and will enable youth from 13 to 18 to access much-needed mental health services in their home community.

The new office is a partnership between Maryvale, the Municipality of Leamington and Abraham Orthodontics.

The collaboration has come together through the creativity of the municipality and the generosity of Dr. Max Abraham and his company.

The mental health needs in the community have risen over past months.

“During the pandemic, in response of the demands for services in this area, we increased the available services from three days to five days each week, permitting us to see as many as 30-35 more youth each year,” said Maryvale’s Executive Director Jenny Letink. “However, this commitment meant that we had to find a way to assume the cost of the rental rate to sustain this level of service. Now with this collaborative partnership, we will be able to provide this level of support ongoingly.”

She is grateful to the municipality and Abraham Orthodontics for their contributions to the satellite office.

“Through this collaborative partnership, the Town of Leamington has significantly reduced our rental rate for the use of this office, they then initiated our introduction to Dr. Max Abraham, which resulted in a generous donation from Abraham Orthodontics to further offset these costs,” Letink said. “Maryvale can bring our services to the youth and families and eliminate the time and cost of travel as a barrier to receiving service.”

A clinically trained therapist from Maryvale provides regularly scheduled counselling for youth three days per week (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday) at the new office, and offers walk-in services every Wednesday from 10 am to 4 pm, where youth or their families can come to the office and receive a single session of direct support from a clinically trained therapist. In addition, a family navigation worker will attend one day a week to help underserved youth and their families connect and navigate the local mental health and addictions system.

“We are beyond thrilled to have the Community Youth Room open and utilized by Maryvale to deliver services desperately needed by our youth,” says Christen Abraham, community outreach coordinator and co-founder of Abraham Orthodontics. “We always seek ways to support children in our community beyond their smiles and are honoured to be a small part of this effort.”

The official opening of the Abraham Orthodontics Youth Room with, from left, Dr. Max Abraham, Leamington Mayor Hilda Mac-Donald, Maryvale Executive Director Jenny Letink, and Child and Family Therapist Kathryn Huyge.