Partners: The key to success - CAMH Annual Report 2005

CAMH Annual Report

L - R: Janice Johnstone, Office of the Fire Marshall; Dr. Sherri MacKay, director of The Arson Prevention Program for Children, Child, Youth and Family Program, CAMH; Capt. Stephen Welowszky, Toronto Fire Services.

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Sherri MacKay recognized that juvenile fire setting was often related to mental health problems. In response, Dr. MacKay and her colleagues Dr. Joanna Henderson and Dr. Mark Hanson created  (TAPP-C). The program brought together fire service professionals and children's mental health professionals to work with children, teens and their families to stop inappropriate, fire-related behaviour.

From the beginning, the program relied on a partnership between local fire services, who provided fire safety education and identified children and teens who were at risk of having problems, and children's mental health counsellors, who provided risk assessment, treatment and follow-up.

Today, TAPP-C operates in over 50 communities throughout the province. Its success, in large part, is due to its continued emphasis on partnerships. TAPP-C and CAMH's regional staff have worked diligently with their communities to establish the program at the local level. Community steering committees involve representatives not only from local fire services and community mental health agencies but also from schools, service clubs, child welfare agencies, the police, courts, probation services and local businesses. Experience shows that the stronger and more varied the steering committee, the greater the likelihood of the program's success in the community.

"TAPP-C has been wonderful at tailoring the program to the community setting," says Dr. Kathy Sdao-Jarvie, Director of Clinical Standards and Development, Peel Children's Centre. "With their flexibility and help, we have been able to integrate screening and intervention into our ongoing, broad-based children's mental health practice."

Support for the program has come from across CAMH. While TAPP-C originated in the Child, Youth and Family Program, departments throughout CAMH, such as Education and Health Promotion and Research, have helped refine the program and develop and produce resource materials. Most recently, the TAPP-C clinical intervention manual was published for use by clinicians in children's mental health agencies.

Dr. Sherri MacKay, Director, TAPP-C Program, Child, Youth and Family Program: In a fairly short period of time, we have moved from an attitude of "kids will be kids" to the recognition that juvenile fire setting is a problem we all need to address. We are creating a new fire-safe generation by working on the problem at multiple levels-the individual, the family, the community and the province.

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