Centre for Family Initiatives
The Centre for Family Initiatives at Pine River Institute (CFI@PRI) provides community support, education and training to families and professionals working with youth who struggle with addictive behaviours and other mental health challenges.
The Centre extends Pine River’s knowledge, experience, and evidence-informed treatment model for families and caregivers to support youth mental wellness and prevent the need for more intensive interventions.
Drawing on PRI’s clinical and research expertise, CFI@PRI offers strategic learning opportunities for youth, parents/caregivers, educators, clinicians and agency staff to help more youth regain mental wellness and develop the tools they need to combat addictive behaviors.
Ongoing evaluation is built in to Pine River’s mission and values – we’ve been tracking the impact of our treatment model and outcomes for 16 years. We report our outcomes in our Annual Evaluation Report.
Pine River Institute is Accredited with Commendation by Accreditation Canada.
OUR WORK AND PROGRAMS
Through our webinars and other educational programs, CFI@PRI provides families and educators with helpful tools, tips, and strategies to reduce the stigma of mental health and promote mental wellness. Our webinar programs include free monthly webinars and masterclass programs. Click here to visit our masterclass page.
For more information and to register for an upcoming presentation, please visit our Webinar page by clicking here.
The Centre for Family Initiatives at Pine River Institute offers training programs to clinicians to help strengthen their knowledge around working with families.
To learn more, visit the Clinical Training page by clicking here.
At Pine River, we recognize the difficulty of being a parent or family in need of immediate support, and then learning of our long wait times for admission. That is why the Centre for Family Initiatives at Pine River Institute has begun our waitlist support group, for those families who are in need of our intensive live-in program. Families have the opportunity to meet others who are also facing challenges with their teen, while learning about our developmental model of addiction, coping tools, and interventions that are unique to having a child who deals with mental health and/or addiction concerns.
It is our hope that this program provides some knowledge for family but more importantly, begins to build the connections that admission to Pine River Institute will provide.
To learn more, visit the Caregiver Waitlist Support Program page by clicking here.
Please note: this program is only open to those who have submitted an application to admission at Pine River.
At CFI@PRI, we believe in the power of community. Through the creation of partnerships, we hope to expand our abilities to share knowledge of youth mental health. If you would like more information on our partnership opportunities, please contact our Community Outreach Director amanda.r@pineriverinstitute.com
Current partnerships:
The Simcoe County District School Board (SCDSB) and Pine River Institute (PRI) have committed to work together to support student mental health and well-being to SCDSB families, staff and within its school communities in a multi-part learning series to take place over the next 3 years.
To learn more about this partnership and webinars offered in this series, please visit the Simcoe County District School Board's website.
Pine River’s podcast Through the Trees offers listeners valuable insight on youth mental health topics. Hosted by Pine River’s CFI Director, Amanda Lamb, the podcast features interviews with thought-leaders on youth mental health and addiction from multiple experiences and expertise.
Our podcast is available on:
OUR TEAM
Parenting can be difficult at the best of times and this is even more true during and post-pandemic. If anything, this time has shown us all how necessary it is to educate and empower families to take a more active role in supporting not just their child’s mental health but also their own. By providing more learning without stigma or judgement we are focused on working to alleviate the feelings of helplessness that can come with having a child who is struggling.
Together, we can make sure our kids have the best outcomes possible.