Yes, I can speak to that. I worked on the psychiatric outreach team prior to my work on the women's mental health team. It was quite common that somebody would be referred at the age of 17 and then they would age out before they even qualified for the youth services program. What we need is bridging services so that as people are aging out at 17 years old, they are coming straight into a program at the age of 18.
The other issue is that the wait-lists are so long that people are waiting anywhere from three to six months for just a primary psychiatric consult, which is an issue. It's typically supposed to be a three-month caseload. I had to keep people on my own caseload for up to a year so that they could access services. We had people in our young women's shelter. Two years ago, I could get them connected to services within a month. It has now grown to two years in a young women's shelter.
To add to that piece, I should highlight that our women's mental health program has been entirely funded by philanthropic donations for the past 10 years, so we have to carve out of the mental health envelope of funding for our program. We rely in our program on peer support to expand our capacity. However, it would make a significant difference if we had targeted and earmarked funding specific to women's mental health care.