Silver Wheaton donates $1.6-million to help St. Paul’s Hospital expand its youth mental health outreach program to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside
VANCOUVER, BC – Today, Silver Wheaton Corp. announced that it is donating $1.6-million to St. Paul’s Hospital to address an urgent need for mental health services for at-risk youth.
The donation will enable St. Paul’s Inner City Youth Mental Health Program (ICYMHP) to expand its services to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, providing intensive support to 40 youth per year and expand access to mental health services for dozens more. Since 2007, the outreach program has delivered mental health and psychiatric outreach services to homeless youth at agencies in other areas of Vancouver.
“Silver Wheaton is committed to giving back to the communities where we live and do business,” said Randy Smallwood, president and CEO of Silver Wheaton, the largest metals streaming company in the world. “With headquarters located near both St. Paul’s Hospital and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Silver Wheaton understands the importance of the Inner City Youth Mental Health Program and the pressing need to expand it to help youth in Canada’s poorest neighbourhood.”
An estimated 700 homeless youth (ages 16-24) live in Vancouver. While many of these youth report having mental health issues, they can be difficult to treat because they are highly migratory and tend to mistrust and avoid traditional support systems. Treating homeless youth is further complicated in the Downtown Eastside by drug use, the sex trade and a lack of safe housing.
“St. Paul’s started the Inner City Youth Mental Health Program to take mental health and psychiatric services outside the hospital to where homeless youth actually are,” said Dr. Steve Mathias, St. Paul’s psychiatrist and one of the program’s founders. “Thanks to Silver Wheaton, we have a chance to reach youth in the Downtown Eastside and provide them with the wraparound mental health services they need to turn their lives around.”
Silver Wheaton’s donation will provide three years of funding for new, highly specialized staff for the program to provide direct support to youth in the Downtown Eastside and offer leadership and support to partner agencies that lack the expertise to treat these patients.
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Media contact:
■Brice Dare
Manager, Communications
St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation
604-806-9850
bdare@providencehealth.bc.ca
■Teya Aasen
Director, Communications
Silver Wheaton
604-639-9870
teya.aasen@silverwheaton.com
About Silver Wheaton
Silver Wheaton is the largest silver streaming company in the world. Based upon its current agreements, forecast 2012 attributable production is approximately 28 million silver equivalent ounces, including 42,000 ounces of gold. By 2016, annual attributable production is anticipated to increase significantly to approximately 48 million silver equivalent ounces, including 100,000 ounces of gold. This growth is driven by the Company’s portfolio of low-cost and long-life assets, including silver and precious metal streams on Barrick’s Pascua-Lama project and Hudbay’s flagship 777 mine and Constancia project. Please visit www.silverwheaton.com for more information.
About St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation
St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation raises funds to support inspired care, research, and teaching at St. Paul’s Hospital. St. Paul’s is a leading academic health science centre located in downtown Vancouver and is home to the provincial Heart Centre, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and other programs that provide care to more than 380,000 patients from across B.C. last year. As a primary provider of care to residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, St. Paul’s serves some of our most medically/socially complex populations, including 85 per cent of the most severe mental-health emergency patients in the Vancouver Coastal Health region. Please visit www.helpstpauls.com for more information.
