1. Liisa Kuuter Liisa.Kuuter@forces.gc.ca
WebXchange: MFRC Innovative Ideas Mental Health: The Power of Walk-in Clinics 8 February 2018
Liisa Kuuter

2. Mental Health: The power of Walk In clinics
The Petawawa Story

3. Why a Walk In Counselling Clinic?
Military Community – fits well with the constantly changing landscape of the community
Flexible & Responsive(available when clients need it)
No appointment needed
Reduce Wait times
Maximize resources
Reduce no shows and service drop outs

4. Benefits of Walk In/Single Sessions
Dynamic – Utilizing a Brief Solution Focused or Brief Narrative approach is exciting and possible!
Immediate Change is observed
Clients walk out the door with new knowledge and skills
Not an Intake!!!
Time spent listening and eliciting information about a client’s strongest desires and their strengths and values.
For many clients – one Walk In / Single session is all they need

5. Implementation in Petawawa
Paradigm shift (moving away from traditional ideas of supporting clients to embracing briefer models)
Training and Staff preparation – essential to success
Pilot phase (bi-weekly Wednesdays 16:00 – 20:00): assess demand, work out kinks, elicit feedback from clients, support staff with shifting to new ways of working with clients.
Feedback extremely positive – moved to weekly Walk In hours – multiple locations
Adapted to shifting client needs – offer Single Sessions to clients unable to make the Walk In hours.

6. What is needed to start?
Documentation – create forms specifically for single session work:
Client Info Sheet: demographics and “How can we help you today”
Session note – geared to single session work
Consent Form - briefer version to fit the nature of the service
Welcome sheet – description of services and protocols
Resources
Walk In bins (crayons, paper, play toys, kleenex, writing paper)
Resource hand outs (typical topics such as parenting, development, anxiety, depression, coping skills, mindfulness activities)
Risk Assessment Tools – Screeners, Safety Plans, etc.

7. Comments & Questions?