Social service

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Our services
Clinical social workers help families cope with the stress of hospitalization, illness or injury. We are specially trained to counsel families, advocate for them, assess patient and family psychosocial needs, provide various forms of counselling (crisis, therapeutic, group work, mediation, and grief), assist with helping patients transition to home, and educate and link families to community and government resources.
 
Working in partnership with the child’s healthcare team, our members are assigned to the medical and surgical units, trauma service, pediatric intensive care unit, neonatal intensive care unit, mental health service, the Emergency department, and the various outpatient clinics. The social worker’s goal is to enhance the family’s health, social functioning and well-being. We are committed to providing family-centered services while guided by our core professional values of a family’s right to self-determination, respect for beliefs and practices of multiculturalism, the protection and safety of all children and families, interdisciplinary collaboration and open communication.
 

Why you may need our services:

  • Child and family’s adjustment to illness and treatment
  • Child’s problems that may arise due to their illness at school or with other children
  • Periods of stress that you may experience as a result of your child’s illness
  • Feelings of sadness and loss
  • Parenting issues and concerns about your ability to cope
  • Financial difficulties created by your child’s illness or stay in hospital
  • Concerns that you or your child may be at risk of emotional, physical or sexual abuse
  • Concerns about communication with your healthcare team
  • Follow-up support for your child and family at home

How we can help:

A social worker will strive to understand your situation and the difficulties you face. Together, you will identify the problems you want to solve and you will work closely to develop a plan to achieve a solution. Some ways our social workers will help include:

  • Supporting you during periods of crisis
  • Offering individual counselling for children and teens
  • Helping you access hospital and community resources to meet your specific needs
  • Providing support groups
  • Advocating for you in the hospital and in the community
  • Arranging for accommodations for out-of-town patients and families
  • Helping to plan your child’s discharge and care at home
  • Providing service following your child’s discharge
Our team

Our team of social workers partner with healthcare teams across the Montreal Children’s Hospital to best serve patients and families. Within the department they are divided among these three areas of focus:

  • Acute Care: provides crisis intervention for cases such as cardiology care, intensive care and emergency care;
  • Chronic Care: provides care for long-term/life-long medical issues such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis and cystic fibrosis;
  • Mental Health and Adolescent Medicine: provides outpatient services in cases such as anxiety, mood disorders and autism. We also admit patients presenting with extreme psychosis.

Social workers are also active members of multiple hospital-based committees, programs and other services.

Program head:

Helen Kastanis, PSW, Professional Coordinator

Refer a patient 

Room: B S1.2018, Glen site

514-412-4455, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Fax: 514-938-7689

After hours emergencies: 514-412-4400 until 11 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on weekends (when speaking with the operator, ask for the social worker on call)

Email: [email protected]