Wood’s Homes

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Research Chair in Children’s Mental Health
$5 million in endowment or $250,000 annually
Research departments are rare among non-profit organizations - Wood’s Homes is proud to be a leader in
this field.
Since 2001, Wood’s Homes has been measuring program outcomes by collecting and analyzing client data
throughout the year.
Our Research Department works to expand the body of knowledge in child, youth, family, and community
well-being. It monitors and evaluates excellence in service delivery within the agency, but also contributes
to the larger service community by sharing successes with others. As well, we gather information about
successful programs developed by similar organizations around the world and benchmark ourselves against
these results.
To this end, Wood’s Homes is seeking support to fund a Research Chair in Children’s Mental Health. It will
be unique in two fundamental ways:
1. Situating the Chair in a Faculty of Social Work (the University of Calgary) in partnership with Wood’s
Homes bridges academic research and education with service delivery.
2. The Chair will lead research that focuses on practice – combining theory and testing with action and
intervention. This work will lead to new strategies that improve outcomes overall and can be shared with
the community.
Our goals are:
n To enhance the existing body of practical and applicable knowledge in the children’s mental health field
n To develop new, innovative and evidence-based interventions that will further help children and their
families with the far-reaching effects of mental illnesses of all types
By achieving these goals, we will create longer lasting interventions for all those working in the field of
children’s mental health and especially improve care for children and their families.
Why this is important…
The entire children’s mental health community, parents and/or caregivers, and the community at large will
benefit from this research initiative by:
n Having access to information about best practices in addressing children’s mental health
n Learning about research practices and outcome measures
n Sharing results and experiences with policy-makers, other agencies, academic institutions and the
general public at the provincial and national level
n Offering families and caregivers the opportunity to learn new skills that can be implemented with
children to enhance relationships and communication
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Wood’s Homes Research
Client Demographics:
In recent years, Wood’s Homes has implemented an electronic tracking system for all clients through
the Kinark Information Database Systems (KIDS). The KIDS database is used to gather and store
confidential information regarding clients and the services they are provided. This database has enabled
programs to obtain quick access to data for case management and enabled the research department to
gather aggregate data regarding clients and services in an unprecedented way. The following detailed
demographics are the result of this shift.
Number of unique children and
families within each program area
(includes repeat clients across program areas)
Crisis and Counselling:
14,802
(includes repeat calls to our crisis line)
Community Residential:
188
Street Services:
1,191
In Home Support and Outcome
Based Service Delivery Programs:
966
Specialized Learning Centres:
417
Intensive Residential Programs:
159
Number of stays at shelters:
708
Number of phone crisis counselling
and mobile visits:
12,702
Number of sessions at Eastside:
3,651
Location*:
85.7%
(n=10,550)
of clients from Calgary
13.4%
(n=1,655)
of clients from outside Calgary,
within AB
0.9%
(n=107)
of clients from outside AB
(within Canada)
*Only includes clients with a
reported location (n=12,312)
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