B.C.’s new vision for mental health and addictions care

A Pathway to Hope: A roadmap for making mental health and addictions care better for people in British Columbia (PDF) charts a course to an improved future for health and well-being in B.C. 

This new strategy lays out government’s 10-year vision for mental health and substance use care, in which people living in B.C.’s mental health and well-being are supported from youth to adulthood and programs and services are available to tackle challenges early on.

It also identifies priority actions the government will be taking over the next three years to help people experiencing mental health or substance use challenges right now, to promote wellness and prevent existing problems from getting worse. This roadmap of both short and long-term changes to B.C.’s mental health and addictions care system is based on four pillars:

• Wellness promotion and prevention
• Seamless and integrated care
• Equitable access to culturally safe and effective care
• Indigenous health and wellness

A Pathway to Hope is a plan to begin transforming B.C.’s mental health and substance use service system from its current crisis-response approach to a system based on wellness promotion, prevention and early intervention where people are connected to culturally safe and effective care when they need it. At its heart, it represents a new way forward for B.C. built on compassion, care and the perspectives of people with lived experience of mental health and substance use challenges, that breaks down barriers and meets people where they’re at.

• Integrated child and youth teams information