The Centre for Family, Child and Adolescent Advancement (CFCAA) in Toronto, Canada, is a private donation funded and operated non-profit registered charitable foundation whose mandate is to provide support services to parents and their children. All services of the foundation are free to the public. The Centre also provides support to non-custodial parents towards promoting their consistent, active and healthy parental involvement in the lives of their children.

Incorporated in late 2000, it took a number of years of working through the bureaucracy for the organization to finally achieve charitable foundation status in 2003. Because so much time had passed, the foundation regrouped and re-surveyed the research and community needs before finally beginning to implement its services. After the long-term program and staff development initiative, CFCAA officially launched its programs in early 2005.

The initial impetus of providing intervention services to people with long term risk concerns, came from one of the founder's experiences in co-developing a comprehensive intervention proposal to the Ministry of Corrections for incarcerated young adults suspected of having cognitive and learning impairments, which were thought to be responsible in part for their corrections involvement. While that proposal was accepted, due to the ill timing of government cutbacks at the time, it was never funded. Another of the founders who has an extensive mental health nursing background has long recognized the harmful effects of various mental health conditions on the children of those affected.

More broadly, the founders recognized that both in the mental health and cognitively impaired communities, services were woefully lacking in terms of dealing with parenting issues. From a commissioned literature review, CFCAA confirmed that the children of such circumstances are highly vulnerable to the perpetuation of family instability, academic problems, chronic under/unemployment, increased mental and physical health concerns and increased involvement with the social welfare and justice systems.

CFCAA is therefore dedicated to strengthening the family bonds, promoting a positive environment and breaking the perpetuation of long term maladjustment in such vulnerable family situations. The foundation strives to do so using a unique intervention model coupled with state of the art evaluation and outcome measurement protocols. Finally, in recognizing the particularly unique needs of the aboriginal and visible minority communities, CFCAA has sought partnership with, and has dedicated services for those communities.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Currently the Directors of the Board are as follows:

Ms. Bonny Cann, C.Y.W.:   A Métis woman presently working within the Aboriginal Community with 17 years experience in Social Services, specifically 10 years in Social services within the Aboriginal community. Particular areas of experience and interest involve childhood trauma and FASD.                      

Mr. Chris Chaltis: Business owner.

Ms. Susan Fraser: B.A., M.N., R.N.: Mental health nurse with Master's in Nursing, with special interest in trauma and interventions for parents with known psychopathology. She is a co-founder of CFCAA.

Mr. Beau Malik: Lawyer, general practice.

Dr. Andre Myrie-Nurse: Registered psychologist who works with children and adolescents in a school board, as well as has a practice offering psychotherapy to adults, couples and families.

Dr. Judith Pilowsky: Spanish speaking Clinical Registered Psychologist with interest in clinical and rehabilitation aspects with a particular focus in multicultural/multi-ethnic communities.

Dr. J. Douglas Salmon, Jr.:  Registered psychologist with practice in            rehabilitation, neuropsychology, adult learning disability and related vocational assessment/counselling. A co-founder of CFCAA, he is currently Chair, Board of Directors. (Further information: www.rrees.com)

Past & Co-founding Board Member

• Dr. Bill Colvin:  Registered Psychologist. Practice in School and Clinical Psychology. Dr. Colvin works at a school board where he oversees a variety of assessments and consults with parents and teachers on how to help challenged children adjust academically and socially.

Contact CFCAA
info@cfcaa.com