Unit Summary

McMaster Children’s Hospital is the regional academic centre for pediatric acute care, rehabilitation, developmental, and mental health services. The Extensive Needs Service provides integrated, cross-sector support for children and youth with neurodevelopmental, behavioural, and mental health challenges whose needs are not met within a single service stream. Funded by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS), the program spans both acute and ambulatory settings and is designed to flexibly augment and integrate with existing services to fill service gaps, attend to unmet needs and provide wraparound care. ENS operates in partnership with other ambulatory programs, including but not limited to: Autism Services, Child and Youth Mental Health, Developmental Pediatrics and Rehabilitation, and is actively scaling into acute environments. The program fosters a culture of clinical innovation, patient a...