The Development of a Youth Advisory Council in Primary Care Settings: Meeting the Needs of Youth Patients Through Virtual Care

2. Integrating digital health and virtual care

  • Release date: Thursday, October 8, 2020
    • Chat with the presenters at the conference! Chat session for this presentation will be available on Thursday, Oct. 8, 4 :00 pm – 4 :30 pm at the AFHTO 2020 Conference.
  • Style: On-demand Webcast
  • Focus: Practical (e.g. Presentation on how to implement programs and/or practices in the team environment)
  • Target Audience: Leadership, Clinical providers, Representatives of stakeholder/partner organizations

Learning Objectives

This presentation will educate attendees on the importance of the youth voice in service development and implementation for youth-specific services. The process of creating a youth advisory council will be discussed, as well as the unique insights gained from this forum, from both the clinician and patient perspective. Attendees will be able to:

  • Describe the steps of initiating a Youth Advisory Council
  • Understand how to adapt youth engagement activities to a virtual environment
  • Understand how to evaluate virtual care from youth perspectives

Summary/Abstract

The pandemic evoked an unprecedented transformation in the healthcare system. Like other areas of health care, the St. Michael's Academic Family Health Team moved primarily to virtual services. Our Youth Advisory Council, which has been in a process of co-development with a group of very engaged youth, similarly moved to virtual meetings. In this presentation, two mental health clinicians and three youth will elucidate the process of creating a patient advisory council, and how the unprecedented move to virtual collaboration has enhanced our ability to work together using platforms that youth introduced, such as Slack, Zoom and Google Drive. We will present the results of a youth survey that was completed by 285 youth across our clinics and how we will use these results to move forward on youth-focused services and a more formalized council. The survey was completed prior to the pandemic, so we will discuss how we will adapt service delivery to meet the needs of our youth and collect new information on youth experiences of virtual services.

Presenters

  • Juliana Tobon, Ph.D., C.Psych., Psychologist, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team
  • Muzammil H. Syed, BSc., Youth Council Committee Member, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team 
  • Katie Sussman, MSW, RSW., Social Worker, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team 
  • Abdur Rafi, BSc., Youth Council Committee Member, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team
  • Ermias Nagatu, BSc., Youth Council Committee Member, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team

Authors

  • Juliana Tobon, Ph.D., C.Psych., Psychologist, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team
  • Katie Sussman, MSW, RSW., Social Worker, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team   
  • Muzammil H. Syed, BSc., Youth Council Committee Member, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team
  • Ermias Nagatu, BSc., Youth Council Committee Member, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team
  • Abdur Rafi, BSc., Youth Council Committee Member, St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team