Speaker Name: Kym Kaufmann
Session Description:
The Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence (CoRE) stands at the forefront of innovation, serving as a transformative force in mental illness and addiction care across Canada. Established with a visionary mandate, CoRE’s purpose is to reimagine what recovery can mean for individuals and communities, driving a new era of evidence-based policy, practice, and system change.
In the past year, CoRE has leveraged its unique legislative authority to execute comprehensive, data-driven evaluations across health and social systems. This approach ensures that policy decisions and service improvements are guided by robust evidence, not ideology, making CoRE a trusted leader in shaping the future of care. As a central part of the Alberta Recovery Model, CoRE’s mission is deeply rooted in human impact—prioritizing prevention, intervention, treatment, and enduring recovery, so that individuals and families can transcend the limitations of illness and realize their full potential.
Central to CoRE’s effectiveness is its advanced data intelligence system—one of the most sophisticated curated data repositories in the country—which empowers real-time measurement of outcomes and supports agile system planning.
Through rigorous evaluation of mental health and addiction programs, CoRE has directly contributed to meaningful enhancements in access to care, enhanced clinical practices, sustained support, and the availability of innovative services such as the internationally renowned Virtual Opioid Dependency Program. These efforts have produced measurable results, including significant reductions in overdose rates, broader access to life-saving medications, and improvements in recovery outcomes, including improved mental health, stable housing, and employment opportunities.
Beyond statistics, CoRE’s work restores hope and dignity to individuals and families, breaking down barriers that once seemed insurmountable. Its economic analyses reveal that investing in recovery delivers substantial returns—not just in cost savings to governments and economic benefits, but most importantly in lives regained and communities strengthened. Every dollar invested supports real people on their journey toward health, purpose, and reintegration.
Committed to collaboration, CoRE actively forges data-sharing partnerships ensuring that its findings drive system-level transformation across Alberta and beyond. The Centre is steadfast in upholding its core values—clarity, integrity, exploration, and expertise—while championing a vision for a Canada where recovery is not an exception, but an expectation.
Through ground breaking research, system redesign, and collaborative partnerships, CoRE is advancing the standard of care in mental illness and addiction, fostering environments where recovery is real, achievable, and fundamentally human. At its core, CoRE’s mission is about empowering people and communities to live hopeful, meaningful, and contributing lives—demonstrating every day that recovery is not just possible, but expected.
Learning Objectives:
Understand CoRE’s mission and impact, how data-driven evaluation shapes mental health and addiction policy, and the role of the Alberta Recovery Model. Recognize how evidence-based improvements and collaborative data-sharing partnerships can expand access to care, strengthen recovery outcomes, and drive system-level transformation across Alberta and beyond, where recovery is achievable.
BIO
Ms. Kaufmann is the CEO of the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence (CoRE) in Alberta, guiding leaders toward effective recovery-focused mental health and addiction systems. Most recently, she served as Deputy Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness in Manitoba. Prior to that, she was the CEO of Eden Health Care Services and an executive at Selkirk Mental Health Centre (SMHC). She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology/Sociology, a Master of Occupational Therapy, and certificates in Public Sector and Quality Management. Ms. Kaufmann has served on the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) Mental Health Indicator Reporting Board; L’Avenir Community Living Board of Directors; the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction Board of Directors; various Federal, Provincial and Territorial government committees; and is currently a reviewer with the Occupational Now Editorial Board and a Board member of the Minister of Health’s Integration Council.