Navigator Program

The Navigator Program provides non-medical supports to help parents and caregivers caring for children with complex medical needs.

Eligibility

You must meet all the following criteria to get support from the Navigator Program:

You must be a parent/caregiver of a medically complex child/teen (under the age of 18) receiving services from CHEO
Your child/teen must have multiple medical issues and/or multiple specialty teams involved in care, and/or a chronic condition requiring ongoing, frequent or time-consuming medical interventions (including 24-hour management care)
You must be a parent/caregiver seeking help/support in at least one of these areas:
- achieving employment or education goals
- improving knowledge and access to key supports
- expanding your social support network
- strengthening relationship health
- coping with stress
- creating self-care techniques
- finding accessible recreation
- connection to peer support
- managing day-to-day issues

Program goals

Our goals are to:

promote the social and emotional health of families
help families access and navigate key supports and services
increase understanding of the best ways to support families
find gaps in the system, and find solutions to the problems families often face

Types of navigators

The program has different types of navigation aids that support different services and needs you may have.

System navigator

The system navigator connects you to the supports and services you need and ensures families have access to funding and services they qualify for, advocacy, counselling, visiting with families during admissions and in the community, and ensuring siblings have access to pro-social resources.

Parent navigator

Parent navigators are parents who bring their experiences and support, which includes:

peer support, including during admissions and clinic visits
informal coffee and chat meetings in the community
A Day in the Life, an awareness campaign for parents of medically fragile children
social gatherings (e.g., paint nights, annual family fun day) intent on cultivating a community of support for families
online peer database

Knowledge navigation

Information gathering to develop more effective tools and strategies to support parents/caregivers.

Through this process, we aim to:

compile comprehensive needs and gaps assessments
develop an inventory of local resources for families of children with medical complexity and technology dependence.
develop partnerships with the Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres (CAPHC), Complex Care for Kids Ontario (CCKO), the Change Foundation, the Ontario Caregiver Coalition, and Citizen Advocacy
create an awareness of lived experience to create system change
establish a psychosocial community of practice with local social workers
build best practices and a tool kit for organizations
generate organizational and community capacity
make recommendations for a sustainable system to support parents (locally, provincially and nationally)

Activities and groups

View the complete activity schedule.

Caring for the Caregiver is a support group focused on the trauma and chronic stress related to caring for a child with complex medical needs. Contact us for information on how to join.

Resources

We have an inventory of resources for families including the following:

our program infographic
Changing Your Lens
"It was a kick in the teeth we didn't need": the taxing process of being audited while caring for a child with a medical complexity
How families walk the financial tightrope of caring for children with medical complexity

Documentaries

A day in extraordinary lives: Caring for children with complex medical needs

Two mothers talk about the everyday challenges of caring for a child with complex medical needs and how they live outside of normal.

Families with medically complex children face life-changing challenges that aren’t just medical

The stories in this video show the strength and determination of these families, and why parents need support too.