Bridging Care Program

Previously, people with acute psychiatric challenges in Greater Victoria would either be admitted to and remain at Royal Jubilee Hospital until it was deemed safe to discharge them to community care or remain at home awaiting admission to a community-based program. Neither of these options is ideal for all clients. While some require the intensive monitoring and continuous assessment provided by hospitalization, others are safe to discharge home on evenings and weekends, and benefit from remaining connected to their community, children, and caregiver supports. The Bridging Care Program (BCP) aims to create a timely, viable alternative to hospitalization for people facing acute psychiatric illness in the Greater Victoria area.

BCP aims to fill this gap by offering a recovery-oriented day program model, in which clients attend intensive group and individual programming Monday to Friday for approximately one to four weeks. The program team includes a nurse, a recreation therapist, an occupational therapist, a social worker, a program assistant, master’s and bachelor’s degree trained mental health clinicians, and psychiatrists. Over the course of the program, clients attend one-to-one sessions with a psychiatrist, group sessions on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, daily movement classes, meetings with the social worker, and individual sessions with a member of the clinical team.

During the one-year evaluation, clinicians on the team spoke about this team’s exceptional dynamic. They described being drawn to work in BCP for the support and encouragement of learning, challenging themselves as clinicians, and expanding their skill sets to meet the needs of clients. When asked what they liked best about the program, one clinician shared, “I really love working with the clients, seeing small changes add up over the course of a month.” Another agreed, adding, “It’s a lovely experience to trust my team members and go back and forth about the best case for a client.” One staff member shared, “This is my favourite job I’ve worked in my career.”

In the first year of Bridging Care (April 2023 – April 2024), 135 individuals successfully completed the program. Clients were consistently contacted within 24 hours of their referral and began attending the program within a week, meeting the program’s aim to provide a timely alternative to hospitalization. Clients demonstrated notable improvements in standardized measures of mental health and wellness after completion of the program, such as the Personal Recovery Outcome Measure and the Patient Health Questionnaire. The one-year evaluation of the program showed demonstrable reductions in inpatient admission numbers before and after enrollment in the BCP.

Feedback from client surveys shows strong support for the program model and for the team’s collaborative and caring approach. In the words of one client: “You saved my life. You gave me the skills to save myself in the future.”

Given the effectiveness of the program, planning for a virtual version of the program is underway.  The virtual model aims to expand program accessibility to a larger geographical area, and to those who face barriers to attending in person.