We had the most exciting Christmas….my husband gave me a puppy!!! (I told you he was a great husband).  I had a dog all my life as a child but in my adult years, my love of pets has been directed to cats 1) because I had never had them and 2) our lifestyle was best suited to them.

So we know have this bouncy, little (and I mean TINY) Italian greyhound named Comet (brothers were called, Dancer, Prancer and Blitzen).  No matter how appropriate the name, I always end up giving my pets nicknames (e.g., our little cat Dewey is now “The Dude”).  Comet is no exception…he has become Squidge (half squirrel - half midge – a very small, biting fly).  This newly acquired nickname is reflective of his integration into our household.  We (I mean the cats) are starting to adjust to his bouncing.  Dex, our very intelligent, black cat,  has finally stopped sitting with his head cocked at a severe right angle trying to figure out this random, little beast and has figured out how to play with him.  Comet has started to figure out that, as a rather hairless little dog, if he is gentle he can curl up and sleep against a soft, warm, furry cat.  We’re even getting potty training down…we are all definitely getting it together.

That is my same wish for Kinark and for Children’s Mental Health in general…getting it together in the form of integration, specifically data integration.  We need to be moving from data to information.  We need to stop talking about knowledge translation and start talking about knowledge creation.  This will only come from data integration.  What is data integration?  It is having client information systems (e.g., types of services, attendance, types of interventions, people involved, appointments), client needs and outcomes (e.g., electronic assessments of areas of need and improvement through measures such as the CANS or CAFAS), and client experience (e.g., hopefulness, satisfaction, alliance, experience with sessions) in connected electronic forms.  This will allow us to understand fully a variety of things in real-time (not six months to a year later after cleaning, matching and analysing data).  We will really start to understand client experience as it relates to outcomes and attendance.  We will really start to understand all of the factors that go into evidence informed practice.  We can communicate real information to clients, service providers, program managers, and researchers to construct true knowledge about experience and outcomes related to service rather than just “transferring” someone else’s knowledge.

In the meantime, we will keep working on the dog-cat integration at my house!