What Can We Do For You?

• Our phone lines open at 9:30 am every morning and we begin booking spots for the day. Our Medical Office Assistants (MOAs) will ask you some questions to help determine who you are here to see. You can reach us at (250) 383-3552.
• We recognize that sometimes people are on hold on our phones. Please know that we really appreciate your patience.
• Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we continue to do most of our appointments virtually or via the telephone. There are some exceptions to this, and the MOAs will let you know if your appointment is in person or not. 
• If you are unsure of who you are here to see, that is okay! You will be connected to either a counsellor, youth worker or nurse to help you navigate our services.
• If you are a parent or caregiver looking for same day services for your child, we will ask to speak directly with your child due to confidentiality and to confirm they consent to the appointment.
• If you are a parent or caregiver looking for support yourself, or information about our supports, we have parent support and parent peer support available to you.
• Finding help for your wellness needs or the wellness of a loved one can sometimes be complicated and confusing. While we offer many services at Foundry Victoria, we know that we can't meet every need, so it's important that we work alongside other services in our community to help you connect with the right people and programs. We can help you better navigate services and systems geared to youth and families in our community.

Collaborative Care Approach

Our team works together between different disciplines (doctors, nurses, outreach workers, social workers, counselors, peer support workers, family support workers and psychiatry) to help support you.

It also means we work closely with you and your family to help you make your own health care decisions and be involved in your care plan.

                                   *** OUR SERVICES ***

Counselling

Drop-in counseling allows young people to call in for same day services! We have five different counselors who use a solution-focused approach to counselling, called Solution Focused Brief Therapy. Young people can call in and talk about whatever is going on in their life right now. Some of the things people talk to the counselors about are mental health, substance use, family conflict, healthy relationships, school, stress, sex, sexuality, and all kinds of things. The counsellors will guide you through the process and work collaboratively with you to come up with some experiments, skills for coping or insights to take away. If the counsellors feel like you may benefit from some follow up counseling, they will chat to you about options at Foundry Victoria or elsewhere in our community.

To participate in drop-in counseling, you just need to call us and book into a spot. Drop-in counseling operates on a first come first serve basis.

We also provide a limited amount of follow-up counselling based on young persons needs, the scope of practice of our clinicians and the availability of other resources in our community. We provide follow up expressive arts therapy, substance use counselling and some CBT therapy. Our counselling team is also able to help youth find follow up counselling options in our community.

Expressive Arts Therapy

Individual expressive arts therapy sessions are offered to youth who are interested to explore their world imaginatively by shaping it through the arts including visual art, movement, sound, drama and writing. Expressive arts therapy is a somatic, play and sensory based approach that encourages being process oriented and mindful in the here and now. No art background is necessary just a sense of curiosity. Discover what unfolds when you follow your creative flow while being landed in your embodied self.

An intake and/or referral is needed to access this program for up to six sessions. 

Currently individual sessions are taking place virtually. In person sessions may be available for exceptional clinical reasons.

Groups

Unfortunately, due our limited capacity with COVID-19 all in-person groups have been put on hold. Please check out our social media pages for up-to-date virtual group options offered through Foundry Victoria.

Mental Health and Substance Use

We provide a range of services to support young people’s mental health and substance use. This includes, but is not limited to counselling supports, peer support, outreach supports, navigation supports, primary care and medication support.

If it is your first time here for mental health or substance use, you will likely be booked in with a counsellor or social worker for an intake appointment.

An intake appointment is a chance for us to get to know you a bit, gather information about different aspects of your life and work with you to create a plan that will work for you. The care plan might include support at the Foundry, but it might also include accessing services supports from our partners in the community.

Primary Care

Our primary care team is made up of both doctors and nurses.

Nurses operate on a drop-in basis and can provide birth control (information, counselling, choice and on-site products), pregnancy options counselling, safer sex harm reduction teaching, testing for sexually transmitted infections, treatment and care for sexually transmitted infections, immunizations review and harm reduction counselling and supplies.

Our doctors (family physicians) provide a full range of primary care services. Unfortunately, due to high volume and unforeseen circumstances, we have a limited capacity to see new clients for primary care and will only be seeing new clients with severe opioid, benzodiazepines or alcohol use disorders requiring pharmaceutical management. We understand this impacts our community and we are working hard to get back up to regular operations as soon as possible.

Please be assured that during this time, existing Foundry Victoria primary care clients will continue to have access to their health care and other care providers.

Our family physicians have access to psychiatry in partnership with Island Health. This is under a collaborative care model whereby psychiatry is available through consultation for those youth already connected to the physician at Foundry Victoria. At this time, we are unable to accommodate direct psychiatry referrals from the community.

Youth Peer Support

Peer support is a unique role at Foundry. Peer support workers support young people from all walks of life and the power of peer support lies in connection and the bonds of shared experiences. Peer support workers can support young people around substance use, harm reduction, accompanying youth to recovery meetings, relationships, mental health support and everything in between. Peer support workers works alongside other services to enhance and support care. Sometimes meeting in a clinical environment can feel scary and uncomfortable. With COVID-19 underway, our peer support worker can meet with youth where they are at, go for a coffee or outside for a walk.

Outreach Services

Foundry Victoria provides outreach services to young people requiring additional support, or those experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. Youth workers can support youth in accessing health care, resource navigation, housing supports, income assistance, harm reduction or ongoing mental health and wellness support. Youth workers work closely with peer support workers, social workers, counsellors and primary care to support young people.

Gender Affirming Care

Foundry Victoria provides specialized social and medical gender affirmation care for trans, non-binary, two-spirited and gender diverse individuals. Services available include hormone readiness assessments, access and navigation, service referrals, peer support and social services. At this time, our waitlists are currently closed to new patients as we deal with some unforeseen experiences. We appreciate how challenging this is and appreciate everyone’s patience at this time. We recommend contacting the Trans Care BC coordination team 1-866-999-1512 for help with alternative delivery during this time.

Foundry Victoria works closely with Trans Care BC to support gender-diverse community members and their families. A health navigator and peer support worker from Trans Care BC is available to have supportive conversations with youth around understanding identities, transition, coming out processes, getting access to hormones and gender-affirming surgery. To access Trans Care BC services, please call our main number to be referred, or you can contact the Trans Care BC team directly using the information found here: http://www.phsa.ca/transcarebc/about/contact

Parent/Caregiver Support

Coming soon!

Youth Action Committee (YAC)

Coming soon!

                                   *** Partner Agencies ***

We are so lucky at Foundry Victoria to have a number of partner agencies to provide the services above to young people, these partners include: Child and Youth Mental Health Services, Discovery Youth and Family Services, Trans Care BC, Work BC and the Early Psychosis Intervention Program.

We also work closely with our community partners in the community, including both youth and adult teams including Island Health, Youth Empowerment Society, Boys and Girls Club, Cool Aid Society, Beacon Community Services, Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Ministry of Children and Family Services and Providence Health Care.