How CHEO is Addressing the Health Needs of Children and Youth At Risk for Type 2 Diabetes

Project Members

The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) is creating a program for community health centres to help kids and youth at risk of type 2 diabetes through their Centre for Healthy Active Living (CHAL).

CHAL works with children and their families with complex severe obesity through one coordinated and patient-specific plan of care which includes specialists such as a pediatric endocrinologist, general pediatrician, psychologists, case management nurse, registered dietitian, exercise specialist, social worker and child and youth counselor.

Preventing Diabetes in Youth through Collaboration

Pediatric obesity and Type 2 diabetes are complex issues that are often not managed effectively in our healthcare system. This could be because some healthcare practitioners do not feel confidant or equipped enough to handle obesity management and Type 2 diabetes prevention.

As child health experts, and experts in obesity and knowledge sharing, CHAL wants to help support healthcare practitioners in the community to impact the health of children and youth across eastern Ontario.

Goals of the Project

Work with community health teams to strengthen their ability to manage obesity and improve prevention strategies for those children and youth who are at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Initial program will take place in the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) region of eastern Ontario.
Results of the project will be available on the Meant2Prevent website.

Planning:

Planning is in progress, although the project has been delayed due to COVID-19.

The CHAL team will work with community health centres to determine the needs of each specific site and set shared goals.

They will:

Develop workshops based on the needs of each community site
Work to have community health practitioners shadow CHAL obesity management appointments
Share tools and resources for managing obesity and preventing Type 2 diabetes
Make sure this is sustainable for continued support

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