WEBINAR: Innovative Mentoring Programs: Supporting Youth Involved in the Legal System with a Mental Health Diagnosis – Mary Lee Block

Healthy habits and healthy relationships are essential for all youth, especially those with more complex needs. How does your mentoring program support wrap-around service supports, and how can you better work together with partners?

The Forensic Adolescent Program is an Alberta Health Services program for adolescent youth who are involved in the legal system and have a mental health diagnosis. A team of Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Nurses and Recreation Therapists provide assessment and treatment with an aim to reduce the risk of recidivism in this population.

The FAP Recreation Therapy Service works with clients to decrease mental, emotional, cognitive, and social limitations. This impacts their ability to engage freely in leisure and to maintain a healthy and balanced leisure lifestyle.

This service is delivered largely through a formal mentorship program where trained and supported volunteers from the community offer their companionship and skills in assisting youth clients to discover themselves and the healthy recreational opportunities around them.

About the Presenter: Mary Lee Block, Recreation Therapist ll, Forensic Adolescent Program Mary Lee holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Alberta, in Recreation Administration and 40 years of experience in both public and private facilities in Calgary and abroad. Her career has been heavily weighted on the needs of adolescents with disabilities, illnesses and social conditions that limit their participation in the normative structure of society. She was the first Recreation Therapist to work in the FAP program and after 20 years still proudly refers to it as “work in progress.” Mary Lee believes that mentorship is the answer to the lion’s share of questions when referring to the young clients of FAP.

Mary Lee Block, Recreation Therapist ll, Forensic Adolescent Program Mary Lee holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Alberta, in Recreation Administration and 40 years of experience in both public and private facilities in Calgary and abroad. Her career has been heavily weighted on the needs of adolescents with disabilities, illnesses and social conditions that limit their participation in the normative structure of society. She was the first Recreation Therapist to work in the FAP program and after 20 years still proudly refers to it as “work in progress.” Mary Lee believes that mentorship is the answer to the lion’s share of questions when referring to the young clients of FAP.