Canadian healthcare providers now have the tools they need to better support the prevention, assessment and treatment of older adults at risk of, or living with, substance use disorders. The Canadian Coalition for Seniors' Mental Health (CCSMH) officially launched four sets of clinical guidelines on substance use disorders in older adults today.

This month The BASIS is publishing a special series on open science practices. The BASIS (The Brief Addiction Science Information Source) is a knowledge exchange resource of the Division of Addiction at the Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital.

Recovery from addiction is considered an ongoing process; it requires the person to continuously manage their addiction to prevent problems from returning. But there is no clear consensus on what recovery means in the field of addictions.

On December 11, 2019, EENet presented a webinar looking at how people with lived experience of addiction define recovery. The panel discussed the results of a study on this topic and implications for Ontario’s addiction treatment system.

I wanted to share with you a new evidence brief that we completed at the request of the Centre for Innovation in Peer Support at Support & Housing-Halton. We conducted a literature review to determine what the evidence says about guidelines or principles for navigating dual relationships in mental health.

Evidence shows that adversity in childhood (ACE's) are a critical factor in the development of psychiatric and physical illness, but that most doctors don't inquire about them. We have created a short video to help people respectfully engage in this process and establish a stronger alliance with their patients:

https://youtu.be/fc7NBdCYUAE

there is also an accompanying webpage with links, resources etc:

 http://www.ACEchange.ca

The implementation of evidence-informed policies and practices across systems is complex and multifaceted. In order to facilitate this process, policymakers, innovation developers and service delivery organizations are increasingly calling upon intermediaries to support implementation, yet relatively little is known about precisely how they contribute to it.

I wanted to share with you our latest Research Snapshot, which looks at a study by Mary Jean Costello and colleagues at Homewood Research Institute and CAMH.

Hello, A colleague has encouraged me to share a short article that I had prepared for our local OASW branch. It was originally prepared for the OASW-Eastern Branch’s Spring 2018 Bulletin, and talks about some of the HQO Standards for the care of adults living with schizophrenia in a community/outpatient setting.

There is a strong connection between hearing loss and cognitive health, particularly in older adults. Prevalence rates of hearing loss and dementia both increase with age, and researchers have found higher rates of dementia in individuals with greater degrees of hearing loss.

This webinar explores the connections between hearing loss and cognitive health, and discusses potential treatment options and strategies for individuals experiencing hearing loss.

The Art of Recovery - Through Another Lens was a 10-week project at CMHA Toronto, where youth from the MOD Early Psychosis Intervention and Transitional Youth Program were invited to participate in a photojournalism group following the photovoice method. This approach was chosen as a way to engage youth to use photography as a visual representation to express their experiences, perspectives and thoughts around a certain topic or social issue.