Getting kids help

Getting kids the help they need—faster

By Derek Sankey

Dr. Brian Siray saw kids falling through the cracks every day.

The family physician near Millarville helped pioneer the area of attention deficit disorder and developmental pediatrics with colleagues in the late 1980s, but could only watch as children with developmental problems in the rural community south of Calgary waited up to two years to get the psychological support they needed.

“That’s a huge amount of time lost in trying to figure out why this child is having a learning problem,” says Siray. “I became more and more frustrated trying to get good psycho-educational assessments done to start helping these kids earlier.”

Siray recently found a solution through U-CAPES—University of Calgary Applied Psychological and Educational Services.

The Faculty of Education’s division of applied psychology launched U-CAPES in October 2006 to provide communities like the one where Siray works with assessment, prevention and treatment services for children, adolescents, adults and families. The U-CAPES model was pioneered by Vicki Schwean, the faculty’s associate dean of applied psychology, who came to the U of C two years ago after establishing a similar service in Saskatchewan.

“When I came here, I recognized a real gap,” she says. “These children are highly vulnerable and many of them have very complex kinds of conditions and situations, so they really do need a wide range of support if they’re going to do well in the long term.”

U-CAPES has two primary goals: to help young children with development problems in Calgary and outlying regions access the help they need, and give psychology graduate students opportunities to work directly with clientele in real-world scenarios.

The U-CAPES team brings together psychologists, primary care physicians, pediatric nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, teachers and education support personnel to quickly and thoroughly diagnose children between the ages of five and 12.

U-CAPES currently has 10 contracts with various health partners in Calgary and surrounding communities, including the Calgary Rural Primary Care Network which encompasses Black Diamond, Turner Valley, Longview and Millarville. Since opening its doors, U-CAPES has received more than 125 referrals and wait times to access psychological assessments have dropped dramatically in only eight months.

“We can get done in about 10 weeks what used to take a year,” says Joe MacGillivray, executive director of the Primary Care Network that oversees funding for communities such as Calgary Rural through federal health dollars.