May 6, 2003





Honorable Tony Clement

Minister of Health and Long-Term Care

Hepburn Block

80 Grosvenor St., 10th Floor

Toronto, Ontario

M7A 2C4





Dear Minister Clement:





I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addictions Programs about the planned MIS/CDS implementation. A number of our member agencies have been asked to participate in the pilot year of this exercise.



The Federation is pleased to see the Ministry taking steps to create a more standardized accountability and data systems. The Federation whole-heartedly supports the development of accountability mechanisms, the measurements of outcomes and the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of community based mental health and addiction services.



We believe the creation of accountability within the system will substantiate the findings outlined in our recent research publication titled Outcomes and Effectiveness: The Success of Community Mental Health and Addictions Programs. This study clearly shows the cost and service effectiveness of community-based services.



According to the schedule set out for the pilot year, there will be training sessions offered in May\June, and there is an Advisory Committee helping to develop the framework for the project and provide support to the sector.



Federation members are clearly indicating distress in dealing with the rollout of this project as it pertains to:



· the failure of the Ministry to recognize and address the workload and resource implications for the sector

· a lack of notice especially to organizations selected to participate in phase 1

· a lack of broad consultation around the process, rollout and form of MIS

· the definitions of functional centers particularly for those organizations that use staff in multi-functional service delivery models

· the insistence on retroactive implementation



We understand that the coming year will be a “pilot year” for a number of agencies, with 2004/05 seeing full implementation of the system. We agree with the premise of testing and adjusting the systems based on the findings of the pilot year. Our major concern, however, is having sufficient resources for community agencies to complete the requirements of the pilot year.



All of our agencies are extremely stretched for resources, and we are doing everything possible to maintain services. Without resources being specifically targeted to MIS|CDS, we have concerns about the tight timeframes being set out for data collection and what the actual quality of that data will be.



The Federation urgently requests the opportunity to discuss this issue with you and the appropriate Ministry staff.





Sincerely,









David Kelly

Executive Director







CC: Mary Kardos-Burton

        Gail Ure

        Dennis Helm