Better together: a decade of partnership recognized on the national stage

When Kent Lewis walked into a room full of St. Leonard's colleagues from across Canada in Calgary this June, he felt it immediately: a shared sense of purpose. 

Lewis, director of St. Joseph's Health Care London's Forensic Psychiatry Program, was in Calgary to accept the Community Collaborator Award from St. Leonard's Society of Canada — a national honour presented to individuals and organizations whose dedication to collaboration is making communities safer, healthier and more equitable.  

"I started my acceptance speech by saying, 'You are my people,'" he recalls. "These are individuals who see forensic patients as people and bend over backwards to help them be successful."

A partnership built on trust and humanity

Forensic psychiatry patients are individuals living with a mental illness who have come into contact with the criminal justice system. Many of whom arrive in hospital without adequate supports — isolated, unwell and facing the daunting task of rebuilding their lives from the ground up. Recovery, for this population, requires time, structure, trust and an approach that treats the whole person: physically, mentally and spiritually.

For more than a decade, St. Joseph's and St. Leonard's Community Services London & Region have walked that journey alongside patients. Through the Transitional Rehabilitation Housing Program, St. Leonard's provides up to six forensic outpatients at a time with a supportive home environment after inpatient discharge — complete with on-site staff who help with navigating daily life and meaningful opportunities to engage in cooking, cleaning, volunteering, education and employment.

For patients who thrive in the program, there's a further pathway: the Forensic Supportive Housing Program (FSHP), which connects individuals with subsidized independent apartments and ongoing wraparound support. It's a model that has created lasting, meaningful change in people's lives.

"People underestimate how important this kind of meaningful structure is," says Lewis. "Having a program we can trust in St. Leonard's — where we're aligned and looking after our patients together — makes an enormous difference."

Values that align

What makes this partnership work, Lewis believes, isn't just the housing supports and programming — it's the alignment of values that underpin everything.

"If you look at St. Joseph's mission, vision and values and then look at St. Leonard's — inclusion, collaboration, compassion, accountability — it's just quite incredible how aligned we are," he says. "We think the same way."

That alignment is something Madison Froese, Manager of Forensic and Supportive Housing Programs at St. Leonard's Community Services London & Region, sees in action.  

In nominating Lewis for the award, she wrote: "Kent continually emphasizes the importance of our partnership and shared values of supporting patient flow from a forensic hospital to community settings, and in helping individuals get back on their feet. He is an inclusive and compassionate collaborator, and one who is accountable to our agency and the people we serve."

"I felt a little uncomfortable receiving the award because I'm really just the figurehead," adds Lewis. "This award belongs to our Forensic Outreach Team, our occupational therapist who works primarily with St. Leonard's and the team at St. Leonard’s itself. It truly is a team effort."

For Lewis, the award is an affirmation of what becomes possible when two organizations commit — genuinely and consistently — to seeing the people they serve as whole human beings and walking alongside them, every step of the way.