Request for Proposal

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

Clinical Literature Review, Needs Assessment and Situational Analysis for Medical Respite Care, Mental Health Services and Primary Care

Purpose:

Sherbourne Health is seeking proposals from qualified consultants to conduct a comprehensive literature review and situational analysis that we will use to inform future funding proposals for clinical services expansion.

About us:

Sherbourne Health is a dynamic provider of integrated health services, community programs and capacity-building initiatives that enable people and diverse communities to achieve wellness. As an urban health agency in the Downtown East Toronto neighbourhood, Sherbourne provides holistic primary care and chronic disease management, mental health services, health promotion and education, outreach and social supports. Sherbourne’s doors are open to everyone, with a focus on 2SLGBTQ+ communities, people experiencing homelessness, and newcomers to Canada, whose complex needs are often not met by traditional health care. Sherbourne combines high-quality clinical care with responsive, culturally appropriate community development programs that bring low-barrier services to people in the surrounding communities who need it most.

Sherbourne’s Acute Respite Care (ARC) Program is a short-term health care unit offering 24/7 care for individuals ages 16 and older who are experiencing homelessness, under-housed and/or socially isolated who need a safe place to recuperate from an acute medical condition, illness, injury or surgery. Medical respite is for clients too ill to be in shelter, but not acute enough to be in hospital and ARC offers a comfortable, supportive environment for clients to rest and recover. It is an inclusive space that welcomes all people of diverse social, cultural and gender identities.

Our Family Health Team (FHT) is an approach to primary care that brings together different health care providers to coordinate and deliver care. Our award-winning FHT consists of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, dietitians, and other health care professionals who work collaboratively, each using their experience and skills to provide care through a variety of health programs and services, ranging from guidance on living healthier to preventing illness, from foot care to overdose prevention, and from managing life-course developments to living with a chronic disease.

The Mental Health Counselling programs at Sherbourne Health have been long recognized for their expertise in providing culturally competent mental health care to the 2SLGBTQ+ community, newcomers, and people experiencing homelessness. Our staff are highly trained in a range of modalities and psychotherapeutic interventions, including short-term and long-term psychotherapy and group mental health programming.

More information on our organization can be found at: www.sherbourne.on.ca

Background:

Sherbourne Health wants to do more. Since the pandemic, we are seeing an increase in acute medical issues in people experiencing homelessness and associated strain on hospital systems, increasing need for mental health care, and a growing demand for primary care, all areas we are well familiar with. Given our experience and expertise, we have also identified the opportunity to expand into palliative care to serve one or more of our priority populations.

The outcome of this project is to create a comprehensive report detailing the current and future state and need for these programs in Toronto and Ontario to inform our program planning and targeted funding requests. The report will identify programs, services and populations that demonstrate need for funding of both operations and capital expansion requirements as part of a pre-capital planning process. The review will also inform strategic directions for our organization.

The programs, services and populations in scope are:

1. Medical Respite care for individuals who are underhoused or experiencing homelessness with acute medical needs.
2. Medical Respite care for 2SLGBTQ+ individuals recovering from gender-affirming surgeries or other acute medical needs.
3. Palliative care for our three priority populations (homeless/underhoused clients, 2SLGBTQ+ community members, and newcomer/immigrants/refugees).
4. Mental Health Counselling program, including both group programming and individual psychotherapy (with or without psychiatry) for our three priority populations.
5. Integrated team-based primary care for our three priority populations.

Scope of Analysis:

1. Literature review for models of care and their associated effectiveness/impact for the identified programs (including both peer reviewed literature and grey literature)
2. Population analysis for those groups targeted by the identified programs (including sociodemographic factors and projected population growth)
3. Current and future state of services in Toronto (and Ontario, where appropriate) for the identified programs
4. Anticipated future clinical service demand in the near-term and long-term for the identified programs

Required Skills and Experience:

To be successful in this call, candidates must demonstrate necessary skills and experience, including:

• Experience working with major operational and capital funders in publicly funded healthcare system (e.g. Ontario Health, Ministry of Health, etc.).
• Understanding of and experience in the community health and community services sectors.
• Finding, analysing and synthesizing research, literature reviews, data and information from multiple sources into compelling, justifiable and clear recommendations.
• Understanding Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppressive frameworks and their application in developing equity-based programs and services.

Timelines:

This review must be completed within 3 weeks of being awarded the contract.

How to apply:

Please provide a proposal outlining:

• your experience in this area
• your process and methodology for this review, including your proposed scope of the review
• timelines for completion of the stages of the review
• costing
• relevant references.
• required resources from Sherbourne Health to support the review

Please provide your proposal by July 1, 2026.

Jeff Reinhart

Director, Clinical Operations

Sherbourne Health

jreinhart@sherbourne.on.ca