A milestone for One Kids Place.
The Children’s Treatment Centre’s McKeown Avenue location has been open for ten years now.
Prior to that they spent about five years at their interim location on Stockdale Road.
Officials broke ground in April 2008, with the McKeown Avenue building opening in September 2009.
Inaugural Executive Director Judy Sharpe tells BayToday it took over 10 years of work before that to bring get to that point.
“Working with hospitals and health units, CCACs, district health councils, LHINs, and various ministry folks all coming together to create an organization called One Kids Place,” she says.
Before the Children’s Treatment Centre opened Sharpe says parents had significant hurdles with a lot of different service providers.
She tells BayToday they got together and started to think differently about service delivery.
“How to identify what our strengths were as a number of different agencies and say ‘you know what, we’re better together’, and start that process of collaboration, co-location and in many cases full integrations,” she says.
An open house goes Thursday from 10 am to 4 pm and includes tours and an opportunity to meet with staff and learn more about the therapy services and clinics offered.
One Kids Place has had over 400,000 client visits since they opened their doors on McKeown Avenue.
Executive Director Denis Filiatrault says they have grown both as an organization and as a community partner.
“We can proudly say by providing our community partners with space for social, recreational, clinical and professional development programs, One Kids Place supports over 14,300 visits to the building annually outside our regular programming,” said Filiatrault, in a release.
“All our successes in this building are thanks to our partners, and the generous donors and supporters who recognized the need for such a valuable resource in our community,” he added.
OKP provides community based rehabilitation services, specialized clinics and related support services for children and youth with special needs in the districts of Muskoka, Nipissing and Parry Sound.

(photo by Jeff Turl BayToday)

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