The Summit: Marian & Jim Sinneave Centre for Youth Resilience, is a three-storey, 3300sq.-m purpose-built facility that provides mental health services for young people and their families in the beautiful northwest Calgary community of Hounsfield Heights. The centre’s new services and integrated research provide a model of care for youth unlike any other place in Canada.
In 2018, responding to a growing need for services, the Province, Alberta Health Services (AHS) and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation announced a partnership to create an innovative new centre to support children and youth with their mental health. The next year, a campaign to build the centre and “Build Them Up,” was launched, inspiring thousands of people to contribute more than $50 million in donations. That overwhelming generosity fully funded construction of The Summit, along with crucial research and programs, many of which began even before the centre opened.
Watch The Summit Pre-Opening Live Stream, this event was held on March 10, 2023.
The Summit: Marian & Jim Sinneave Centre for Youth Resilience began providing specialized mental health care for young people on March 13, 2023.
Young people and their families have played a very important role in shaping the design of the new building and the programs and research priorities within it. From the beginning, it was families who wanted the centre to be located in the community, rather than in a hospital setting. Their belief that it would be less intimidating and encourage more young people to seek help sooner was echoed by leading mental health centres from across Canada, the United States and Australia, who were also consulted on this project.
Volunteer members of the centre’s Youth and Family Advisory Councils provided tremendous time and effort into ensuring the interior graphics, furniture and even ceiling tiles would create a warm, inviting, and youth-focused atmosphere. Their input was also valuable in planning care delivery – ways to ensure programs are flexible to the needs of each family, how best to provide orientation for services, forms and documentation, as well as hours of operation to support family engagement in care.
They also had a large influence on the name of the building. The first half of the name honours the lead donors for the new facility, Marian and Jim Sinneave. The second half includes the word summit to reflect the journey and challenge of navigating mental health while resilience creates a sense of hope.
Youth and families are also informing scientific priorities for The Summit which will be one of the most research-intensive community-based mental health facilities for youth in Canada. Everyone who receives care at The Summit will have the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from leading-edge studies conducted in partnership with the University of Calgary that will help advance therapies for young people in our community and around the world.
The Summit provides young people with new and enhanced mental health services, all in one building. The facility’s services augment and integrate with existing services provided by AHS and community-based agencies.
Services and programs include mental health walk-in services, an intensive outpatient therapy program and a day hospital program.
How They Help the Healthcare System
In addition to providing much needed care for children, adolescents and their families, the services and programs at the Summit are also designed to help reduce pressure on the healthcare system by meeting the needs of distinct populations including the following:
