Programs & Services

Intervention and Outreach Team (IOT)

The Intervention and Outreach Team (IOT) is a community-based team providing High Fidelity Wraparound (HFW), clinical interventions such as Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), and 24/7 community supports for Winnipeg’s most vulnerable children and youth.

Funded by Manitoba’s Child and Youth Mental Health Strategy and located at NorWest Co-op Access Centre as well as throughout the City of Winnipeg, the IOT works towards improving emotional, behavioural, and mental health outcomes for children and youth with complex, multi-system needs.

The IOT has clinicians, mentors, an Indigenous Elder, a psychologist, and a teacher who work with the child/youth using a strength-based, culturally relevant, HFW approach.

The IOT helps the child/youth form a network of professional and natural supports that will assist the child/youth in working towards their self-identified goals. During this process, the IOT clinicians and psychologist provide counselling and other therapies (including access to psychological and psychiatric interventions, if needed), as well as HFW facilitation. The mentors assist the child/youth in their home, academic, and/or community life. An Indigenous Elder is available to youth and their families as well as a certified teacher to help with more intensive academic needs.

The IOT is an innovative partnership involving NorWest Co-op Community Health, Healthy Child Manitoba, and the departments of Families, Education and Training, Health, and Justice. Children/youth pre-selected for IOT in Year One have been identified as having some of the most complex, multi-system needs in the City of Winnipeg.

Healthy Child Manitoba is leading an evaluation of IOT that will scientifically demonstrate the effectiveness of IOT in improving immediate and life-long outcomes for these children/youth.