Monday, October 20, 2025

Ms. Deborah Richardson

The Ministry of Health is already undertaking several initiatives with partners across government as well as Ontario Health and its Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence to prioritize actions that respond to the recommendations from now through to 2027, and you’ll hear we’ve already started to implement many of them. The ministry is focused on actions that will have direct, timely impact on the services provided to children and youth, and build on initiatives already under way. This includes—and I spoke to this—the Ontario intensive treatment pathway, which is focused on improving service for children and youth with intensive mental health needs, starting with live-in treatment services. This Ontario intensive treatment pathway has formalized a governance structure, including advisory subgroups and research. Reports have been completed that provide an overview of existing intensive services, focusing on live-in treatment and on a clinical population report that identifies profiles of children and youth who are most likely to benefit from live-in treatment. Work has begun to develop quality standard for live-in treatment services as well. Parallel to the Ontario intensive treatment pathway, the ministry established an Indigenous steering committee, to work with the ministry to design and implement an intensive services model that is culturally grounded and structured to better meet the needs of Indigenous children, youth and their families. We are collaborating also with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services and the Ministry of Education to develop a cross-sector protocol to support earlier collaboration and coordinated service delivery across various sectors that support children and youth and define roles in planning and providing comprehensive multidisciplinary support for youth with complex special needs. That protocol is expected to be in place by 2027-28. We’re continuing to improve data collection, which is so important, and the quality of data already collected at the ministry and also through the work of the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence’s data and digital initiative. You’ll hear more about that as well. The focus of the data and digital initiative includes, at a high level, creating a standard provincial data set to provide health system insights across the lifespan, building a central repository of mental health and addiction data and providing the mental health and addiction sector with recording and analytics to drive quality improvement. Over the next two years, we’re focusing on the following: —filling service gaps, including those related to intensive treatment services; —supporting better coordination and creating more consistency across sectors and across the province; —improving the quality of data we gathered to inform programs and services and to improve outcomes for children and youth; and —strengthening how we manage and oversee the system in place to deliver mental health services to children and youth. I will note that implementing some of the Auditor General’s recommendations will take more than two years. These actions are dependent on a broader system change which can take time to implement effectively and we want to ensure that the actions we take are effective and improve mental health outcomes for children and youth as they progress into adulthood. For example, the ministry agrees with the Auditor General’s recommendation to “establish performance indicators and timelines to measure progress in improving access to, and facilitate cross-sector coordination among ... service sectors such as autism and child welfare....” However, to advance this recommendation meaningfully, our first step would be to work with partners to develop a cross-sector protocol. This protocol will serve as a foundational framework for the indicators, providing shared definitions, standards and outcomes. These elements are essential prerequisites for the development of robust and meaningful performance indicators. We intend to build on system change initiatives already being undertaken to implement Roadmap to Wellness, Ontario’s mental health and addictions strategy. There’s also more work to be done to better coordinate work across health, education, child welfare and community health agencies to come together in building a more responsive and inclusive child and youth mental health system—and, I would argue, primary care, of course, as well, and public health.

Official source

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Great. Thank you very much. This week, we’ll be proceeding in the following rotation, which is 20 minutes to the government, 20 minutes to the third-party members and 20 minutes to the official opposition. We will follow this rotation for two rounds, beginning with the government. MPP Smith.

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Mr. David Smith

Thank you, and good afternoon. I am very pleased for that well-illustrated talk that you brought forward to us to give us sort of a road map as to where your industry is taking us, from the auditor’s report. Today, some of the questions that I have—when you talk about nine hubs, do you feel that is an adequate number to meet the needs of individuals here in Ontario, and where are they located?

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

Just for clarification: There’s already 23 hubs that are located right across the province. There’s nine additional hubs that are in the works. We definitely can tell you where they are. We’re just calling it up. We can tell you the locations.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

As the deputy has said, right now, we’ve got 23 across the province that are operational across all of the regions of Ontario. We’ve got a number in Toronto, we’ve got some in Kenora, Guelph-Wellington, Windsor-Essex, London, Sudbury, North Simcoe etc., and we’ve got another five hubs that are in full development right now, across Brampton, Oxford county, Port Hope, Thunder Bay and Vaughan–Woodbridge. These are the ones that are being more or less planned to be opening up this year, and then we’ve got another set of four that will be opening up next year.

Official source

Mr. David Smith

Thank you. I’m glad to hear that these are additional hubs that you’re opening. In terms of timelines, I’m glad to hear that you’re taking seriously what the Auditor General has suggested, and I’m hearing, Deputy Minister, that you made mention that two years might not even be sufficient time to implement all of this. But my concern is, what do you see as the endgame to meeting this urgent need that is before us?

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

Like I said, as a parent of somebody who—one of our five kids had some pretty serious mental health issues, and this was a number of years ago. It’s amazing now that, through the centre of excellence, there’s an actual body that takes the research and coordinates things in a way, so having to navigate—I’m in a position of privilege. I’m an executive in the government and know how to manoeuvre. Many people are not in that position, and I’m just so happy that we’re centralizing things so that people will have more access to services and eliminate barriers. I think being able to provide virtual care—a lot of kids now, this is how they like to communicate, right? And so the fact that we’re also providing tools that kids can access in different forms—whether it’s intensive and they need intensive treatment, whether they need a youth wellness hub with some mentoring or whether they need somebody to actually talk to and then get a referral if they’re in trouble, I think that would be a system where everybody knows where and how to access services. I think that’s pretty critical.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Can I answer that as well?

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

Yes, please do.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Thank you for your question. The government’s approach and plan starts with Roadmap to Wellness which is the strategy for building a comprehensive and connected mental health and addiction system across the province. It starts with a $3.8-billion investment over 10 years. Since 2019, that investment continues to grow. The government has added over $800 million in new base funding for mental health and addictions writ large, including over $200 million for children and youth mental health itself. That is going towards mental health treatment, wait-lists and expanding existing programs across the care continuum. That includes the investment that the deputy was mentioning earlier, called the Ontario intensive treatment pathway, which is a $22-million investment focusing on community-based intensive services, which was one of the key areas that the Auditor General spoke about in terms of looking at things like enhancing the number of beds and the services across the province. The deputy mentioned in her remarks that we’re creating regional networks using a hub-and-spoke model for the delivery to better coordinate access for intensive services and then establishing quality guidelines, as well as identifying where there may be gaps in services for these really needed, intensive live-in treatment services which we’re starting to focus on. While that is being built and under way, the government has also invested across a number of other services to address both wait-lists, treatment options and opportunities for children and youth. For example, I’m not sure if folks have heard about One Stop Talk, if you’ve got a small child or children at school. This is really an innovative program that we invest about $4 million each year in. You can think about it as a virtual walk-in clinic where people can access free mental health services. It’s low barrier—pretty easy to access. I think it’s made available in over 200 languages, including sign language. What happens is you can call up a number or access it through a website, and you’re immediately talking to a therapist. There are zero wait times for this. It actually is really helpful because it supports folks who might have difficulty getting access to care of the province. Sometimes we know in more rural areas or in northern, remote communities, it might be more difficult to access services. What One Stop Talk allows people to do is, say you’re in a remote community, if you have access to the Internet, you might be speaking to a clinician in Windsor. It makes people’s access available across the province, as I said, without any wait times.

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Mr. David Smith

Thank you. I think your answers suffice. Chair, I would like to yield the rest of my time to my colleagues.

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

MPP Dixon.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

Thank you so much, both of you, for coming. I have sort of a two-part question, which I’ll give you all at once. The first part: The minister has talked a lot about how we can’t improve what we don’t measure, so I am curious about what types of key performance indicators or outcome measures the ministry is either using or developing to evaluate your progress, and also how that data will be published. And then, second to that: Is there any plan as far as collecting or linking that data in a way that could ultimately show return on investment? For example: reduced emergency visits, less justice involvement, fewer hospitalizations for youth that get mental health support. That was my two-part question.

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

I think that’s a great question. I think in the short term, we need to get this right. So it’s kind of linked to your question and your question, because we have the short-term, the medium-term and then the longer-term, more systemic things. In the short term: By March 2027, we want to be able to have a performance-monitoring framework for oversight of agencies and lead agencies, and then improve, obviously, wait-time definitions and data consistency, because right now how wait times are being tracked is all different. We need to have the standards so that we can know what we’re measuring and do that collectively. That’s the work we’re doing through the centre of excellence. Obviously, enhanced transition policies—this is all connected, right? You need to have the data, you need to have everyone measuring the same and the transition policies for youth and then expanding access to coordinated services through initiatives like the one that Kyle just spoke to. And then agency-level data attestation and reporting tools will be important. I think that’s really key. I don’t know if you have specifics, Kyle, about some of the indicators.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Yes. As the deputy is saying, there is the infrastructure side, to make sure that there’s the capability for organizations to submit data. Then there is the approach of requiring standardization of that data so you can compare across different organizations. Then there is what you do with the data and how you performance manage with that data. Right now in the children and youth mental health space we’ve got two systems that we’re using to collect data from the children and youth mental health providers. One is called the business intelligence solution, which pulls in data from our providers and asks a number of different types of questions. So we get data from them related to wait times, for example, across the seven different core services that the children and youth mental health sector provide.

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Ten minutes left.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

We also collect data about what other services they’re providing. We get data around the perception of care and whether or not positive outcomes are happening. We get a range of those types of stuff coming in through the business intelligence solution. We also have something that is more focused on the financials. We have something called the Transfer Payment Ontario system. Organizations are required to submit data more on the financial side of things, so we collect data on that front as well. Then there is the future that we’re looking at, that the deputy had mentioned, which is the work being led by the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence and Ontario Health. As part of the work, one of the key elements of system transformation under way is improving the type of data we get. In the mental health and addiction system sometimes we get too much data in terms of folks submitting, but it might not be the right kind of data. In some cases we need to be collecting more data from providers and we certainly need to be standardizing it. Through the work of the data digital initiative at the centre of excellence a number of things are happening. One, what we’re doing is we’re rolling out a provincial data standard so that every organization that receives funding for mental health and addictions in the community space is required to provide data that is to one standard. That will evolve over time. We’re starting the process of having the second version of that being rolled out. The second piece of that is, you want to make it as easy possible for the providers to be able to submit data, and so we’re funding opportunities to move to compliant data systems and information systems so that the different pockets of technology can speak to one another. We want to make it as easy as possible. The technology allows us to pull that data on a nightly basis, so it’s not manual. They don’t need to submit it. That is a key component of being able to measure change over time, measure performance of organizations in a standardized way, collecting a similar type of data and then being able to use it on the performance side. The deputy talked a little bit about two things on the performance side, which I think gets at your question about how we know we’re getting results for the funding that we’re doing. We do get some data, as I said, on the performance side, particularly on the financial side, through Transfer Payment Ontario and the business intelligence solutions. Eventually, once we onboard the children and youth mental health space into this data digital initiative, we’ll be able to collect a whole range of indicators, not just financial, and assess quality outcomes. A key element of being able to do that is the establishment of something called the core services framework. If you’ve seen the Roadmap to Wellness, one of the commitments there is to develop a core services framework that’s across the lifespan. Right now we have seven core indicators for children and youth mental health. We’re going to be expanding that and building in more core services for the adult and addiction community mental health space. Once those are established as part of the legislative authorities that are identified for the centre of excellence for mental health and addictions, they’ll be developing what are called minimum program expectations and quality standards for each of those core services. When those are established, it allows the ability to compare apples to apples, performance to performance, against a set of expectations that each provider is meant to provide, and through the broader accountability framework and performance measurement, that’s how you start to understand better if are you foreseeing more quality outcomes for the investments that you’re making.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

Just to follow up on that: Given that we’re in public accounts, I’m still curious about the about the concept of what types of financial or performance measures are going to help you demonstrate that the investments are delivering value. I’m also curious; you talked about partnering with MCCSS and education, but one of the things that is challenging in this area is the measure of the non-event, the fact that a child that receives an early intervention that has a preventative impact does not end up in an emergency room and often does not end up in the justice system specifically, with police involvement. I wonder if there’s any discussion from the ministry as far as tapping into those other areas, because from an academia perspective, that is one of the most challenging things to demonstrate and also one of the most challenging things to demonstrate for the service providers, is to show that ROI that extends beyond just their own sector.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Yes. A key component of that is that data digital initiative that I was saying about. One of the initiatives that is rolling out as part of that is using OHIP-level data collection, and so that you can start to see a person’s card through the system. So we would be able to see, if they access a children and youth mental health program, did they turn up in the emergency department at a future date, for example. As a way of mapping across the different sectors, whether that’s primary care, acute care or in the community, that’s in the early stages. It’s first being rolled out in the adult community and mental health sector, so we’re going to be working with Ontario Health about how do we maximize that investment so that it also goes to the children and youth mental health providers so that we can start to track them across the system.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

Thank you. How much time do we have left, Chair?

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Three minutes. MPP Firin.

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MPP Mohamed Firin

It’s very important to me that young people in my community, whether they be accessing youth services or transitioning into adult services after turning 18, have seamless access to mental health and addiction support. Deputy Minister, can you outline the steps that the province is taking to ensure this?

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

So I spoke a little bit about this in my opening remarks. The information on the significant steps that we’re taking to meet the needs of transitional-aged youth and youth experiencing addiction issues, in alignment with several of the Auditor General’s recommendations: In 2020, the government released—we spoke about Roadmap to Wellness, our plan to build a world-class mental health and addiction system supported by a commitment to invest $3.8 billion over 10 years. The road map is adding capacity to meet demand, filling gaps in the care continuum and creating a provincial infrastructure for a mental health and addictions continuum of care that creates community, primary and acute care to better wrap around the needs of children with mental health and addictions. So, ADM MacIntyre, I know we just have a few minutes left, but maybe you could just give some of the details.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Sure. As the deputy mentioned, there has been significant investments, both base funding for the mental health and addiction system writ large but also for children and youth. The Auditor General’s report did specifically talk about the need for developing coordinated pathways for children and youth who are of transition age. There are different ways to define that age, for sure. They also made mention of a quality standard that’s in place. One of the things just to remark on—currently, right now our children and youth mental health providers are required to make sure that they are engaging in transition planning across a number of different transition points already. We do have guidance towards those children and youth providers that they should be preparing for those transitions to support children and youth as they come into adulthood. That can be across a number of different providers, whether that is related to school, discharging out of a children and youth provider or into a community mental health space that is more targeted for adults. This is outlined in the program guidelines and requirements that the ministry has issued to support child and youth mental health programming. It’s a partnership-based approach. One of the things that we’ve heard loud and clear from the Auditor General’s report is the need to do better and work with the centre of excellence of mental health and addictions to be able to do that.

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

We’re at time. We’re now going to move to questions from the third party. You have 20 minutes.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

Thank you very much for the description you’ve given today. I do want to start off by commending one thing that we heard about today, which was that in the last budget there was an over $300-million investment into the community mental health sector, which I think was needed, particularly around some of the issues on wages. I do want to commend that that has occurred, and I hope that it will make a difference in this sector. They hadn’t had an increase in some time. I will say, though, I do hear a lot from families still trying desperately to access service for youth and young people. When I read this report, it highlighted that we really need to bolster intensive services. It was the first recommendation in the report. You’ve talked a little bit about the creation of networks and the pathway, the $22 million, but we see big geographic differences in access to service today. I just wondered if you could speak a little more around how quickly we will see that money translating to services for young people, because I think it’s pretty desperate out there.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Thank you for the question. You’re right. There’s an orientation that we’ve sort of talked about, the Ontario intensive treatment pathway, which is the $22-million investment. Just, again, for folks to understand, it’s focusing on live-in treatment, part of the intensive services care continuum. We are establishing, first, the regional networks. We hope by the end of this fiscal year, we will have issued the call for proposals to identify who are those providers that are going to be the main hub and centre for delivering a good chunk of that care. It also requires us to establish quality standards for the programming as well as doing some work to assess where those gaps are. While that work is under way, the Ministry of Health has continued to invest in this space in preparation for the creation of that pathway to go live. For instance, there have been investments that are supporting our ability to understand the landscape and the clinical profile for the children and youth who would go in there. We know that not all children and youth would benefit from this related type of access to treatment, so we want to be thoughtful about who can enter that service there. As of last year, for example, we invested almost $14 million in that intensive services space to support stabilization, the reduction of wait-lists and building sector capacity. That happened with supporting clinicians with advanced tools. We built the capacity through supporting providers so that they could do some hiring as well. There was an element of training involved for the support services. What we’re finding is that the range of complexity for children and youth mental health is increasing, so we want to make sure that clinicians and others are being able to be prepared to handle that change for the population. There was also a number of investments that were related to capital renovations to support the therapeutic value of physical spaces. There are other sorts of investments that have been happening as well so that we’re continuing to address the care continuum through a number of different kinds of investments. We spent almost up to $3 million in expanding Indigenous-led intensive services in the north, for example. I did talk about the almost $4-million investments around One Stop Talk, which allows children and youth to access care right away. We spend up to $2 million annually on a basis and a multi-year $1 million to support the Complex Transition Fund as well, which provides short-term, flexible funding for children and youth with complex needs. The Ministry of Health has also invested up to $8.5 million in new annualized base funding to create four new Step-Up Step-Down programming, which helps folks in live-in treatment programs across Ontario. They may need short-term supports to step down from a hospital to get into the community for a less intensive service space, or maybe they need more intensive services to step up and receive care. That expansion occurred in the last couple of years and builds on existing programming for that as well. Those new programs are in Kenora, Sudbury, Hamilton and Waterloo. There’s also been an increase of funding of almost $6 million and one-time funding that we’ve been doing over multiple and multiple years, supported through the Children’s Mental Health Ontario association, again, focused on that clinical training for complex needs. Over 2,000 clinicians who treat children and youth in that complex mental health space have accessed that kind of training. We also have some money that—we’ve been doing some pilots as well of different types of treatment in this space to see what works.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

I guess my next question will be, then, given that: Are you pretty confident you’re going to see a big jump in volumes between, say, last year to the end of this year in who’s been able to access those intensive services? Right now, when we say that we’ve got 13 of 33 service areas that don’t have live-in treatment, are you going to see more of those service areas actually receiving treatment in this year? I think the work of the network—I’ve come from working in health care. I know what it takes to create these things. Again, I just really hope we’ve got a way to measure whether we actually cared for more people this year and are confident on that. It’s not just money, right? It’s actually—did it reach people? I worry a little because the service, the framework that you’ve described has been in development since 2018, right?

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

The last two years.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

And so, how are we going to be sure people are going to get the care they need?

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

We do track a couple of things. One is the volume of service within a core service space. We would be able to see whether volumes are increasing. We also do track wait times associated with those services, so that helps with that. Then, of course, we engage with the providers as well to see what they’re seeing. For that Ontario intensive treatment pathway, what we will see is not just an increase in service, but really the children getting the right kind of service. Because, right now, you could have 12 people access the service—I’m just making a number up; it could be 1,000, whatever the number is—but not all of those children should be in that service. They should be in something else that’s more suitable to the treatment they require. So that following year, it might go down, but it is the right people getting the right access to the right service in that space.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

There will be a quality measure for that, presumably.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

That’s right.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

That’s great. How am I doing for time?

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

You have 11.5 minutes remaining.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

That’s wonderful. So then I guess my other question is really around the data. I just wanted to pick up on the theme of the data and making sure that we are developing out the systems that we need. I think sometimes this is a challenge for agencies when they’re not funded, to be able to support those data systems and data collection systems and support the standards themselves. Does part of this plan include funding some of that infrastructure for these agencies?

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Yes, that’s right. So a couple of different themes: We’ve invested over $4 million over the last two years to support more of the children and youth mental health providers to come on to the business intelligence unit. That funding also goes towards things like replacing—so that they’re on a compliant system for them to send us data and for us to receive the data. That also comes with an investment of quality, so giving them some support to improve the quality of the data that they’re sending as well. So that will continue. I think the biggest, more transformative space for this is around that data digital initiative from the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence that I was talking about around the standardization of the data set itself and then funding that goes towards them being able to get compliant systems and on to that process. It is, as you understand, quite a transformative process and something that will take time to be able to do that. I think the last stats that we had from the centre of excellence, the number of organizations that have onboarded or are plan to be onboarded, it’s about 90% of the funding space that they’re on. So a lot of progress is being made on that. The children and youth sector is going to start a little bit after the adult sector, in part for two reasons: (1) we already have a data system that we are able to collect information and data from the children and youth space; and (2) we wanted to make sure that the adult space and the addictions space were starting to get onboarded—that’s also where the majority of the money is relative to the different programming—and to be able to learn from that approach that’s happening. Working with this Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence, we’re on track to start onboarding children and youth mental health providers onto that data digital initiative, meaning they’ll come on a compliant system, that they’ll be submitting data toward a provincial data standard, starting next fiscal year. There has been some trial work already under way. We’re working with four pretty large providers just seeing if there’s any additional issues that we need to manage because they’re transitioning on and they’re coming from a different space. One of the most important things that we’re making sure that happens is that, as we’re building up the children and youth mental health centre onto the data digital initiative, we’re not losing the data that we’re collecting from the business intelligence unit solution or the Transfer Payment Ontario solution. We want to be careful that we’re not creating too much burden for the providers themselves and that we’re not losing the data that we actually have, so we want to do that in a thoughtful way.

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

Maybe just to add: We do spend $2.1 million just for the BI right now, and as ADM MacIntyre said, we will be transitioning it to the broader system. So we are investing money right now to help service providers.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

And that will fix the issues around different definitions on wait times and all of these other—

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

You got it.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

—a few of the other things that came out in the report.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

That’s right. That provincial data standard should be defining not only the data you’re doing, but how you describe that data, which would require the providers to work in a way that meets that definition. So that will be across the lifespan, across all the children and youth mental health providers, but also all the adult and addictions providers as well.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

How much time do I have now?

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

You have just under seven minutes.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

Okay, great. There has been a lot of discussion today about the centre of excellence, and then in the report there’s a lot of discussion about the oversight, the role of the Ministry of Health—and also the benefits around that transitional-age youth into the adult system. Are you looking for the child and youth mental health system to be led in more of a similar way out of the centre of excellence, for the adult system? Sorry, I’m tripping on my words here. It feels like, from the report, I’m sensing there’s still confusion on where the direction is coming from and where the accountabilities lie. Is the idea here that we’ll transition that accountability in more of a model to the centre of excellence and the relationship that health care providers have with OH?

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

Those are the options that we’re looking at, but as you know, there are two pieces of legislation, so we need to make sure that there’s legislative authority to do those things. I think that as OH has really developed the centre of excellence—it’s awesome—but we’re still kind of working with agencies on placing children and doing different things, right? And that’s a legislative responsibility that we have, so we have to figure out how to give policy options to how you can do that and streamline it and move it over to one. But I think it does make sense at one point. We’re slowly getting there and we’re building as we bring forth those changes. I don’t know if it would be helpful to talk about CIHI when we’re talking about data, so I don’t know, Kyle, if you want to—

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

Some of the discrepancies.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Yes, I’ll just answer part of it and then get into CIHI. As the deputy said, there’s two different constituting legislations that manage both the authorities and the role in the children and youth mental health space: the Child, Youth and Family Services Act and then there’s the Connecting Care Act for Ontario Health and the centre of excellence, definitely moving towards making sure that there is a lifespan approach about collecting data, monitoring a person going through the system to help manage transition-age and the like, for sure. Again, we’ve sort of outlined the approach and what’s happening on that front. But there are special and particular things that we want to make sure happen in the children and youth space that is different than adult. They’re much more vulnerable people, different age group. There are requirements under different acts that treat children and youth up to the age of 18 differently than they would be as an adult, so we want to be thoughtful about making sure that we’re capturing them. But we work with both the centre of excellence and the lead agency consortium as well and are thinking through what kind of additional governance mechanisms we can do to make sure that we’re looking at things across the lifespan, including the establishment of a core services framework, for example. With respect to that CIHI-related data that was identified in the report, I think the Auditor General made a recommendation. I won’t say it exactly, but it was around two different things. One is maybe move towards a paying Canadian indicator for wait times, in this case particularly around counselling, and then there was an observation around making sure that, as part of that indicator, you’re looking at being consistent in how you measure a wait time. There’s a CIHI indicator right now that only four provinces are actually reporting fully into; the remainder of the provinces, like Ontario, are partial or incomplete. That’s one observation. The data that we pull and the indicators that we report on internally to ourselves around wait times is the average wait time for a person waiting for a core service like counselling or something like that. What the Auditor General’s report said is, take a look at when someone is counted as coming into the system and take a look at when they’re counted as leaving the system. And so, in the business intelligence solution, it looks at when someone enters—

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Two minutes remaining.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

—the wait time part of the spectrum and then when it leaves the wait time. What the Auditor General’s report said is maybe look at the referral piece and then when they start to service, which is sort of what the CIHI indicator said. When they identified that in the report it looked like if you used the process for the CIHI side it might add a little bit more time in terms of the wait time. But if we were to use the CIHI process and their actual indicator, they use the median wait time data. So if we were to look at the wait time data on the median scale for the CIHI it would be 25 days, as opposed to I think what was in the report, 120 days. So if anything we’re over-reporting if we use the median CIHI data. So that’s something that we’re looking at. We are able to take our data, use the process that CIHI uses for that indicator and submit to CIHI in that way. Eventually what we want to do, to your question, is move towards a consistent lifespan approach, perhaps using the referral and then leaving service as a way of measuring that. But that work, we want to make sure that that’s happening with DDI—that digital initiative—led out of the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence as well.

Official source

Ms. Lee Fairclough

Thank you. I do have more questions around concurrent disorders and access to those, but I’ll leave those for the next session.

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

We’re at 30 seconds left, so—

Official source

Ms. Lee Fairclough

Oh, I still have 30 seconds? Okay. So maybe I will quickly ask, and maybe we can come back to it. I do think that we talked a lot about a pretty significant gap in concurrent disorders and being able to support people that have got mental illness and some kind of substance use challenge. Maybe I’ll just seed that now, knowing that I’ll come back to that in my next session.

Official source

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

We’re at time. We’re now moving to the official opposition, beginning with MPP Lennox.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

In the report the vast majority of child and youth mental health agencies reported difficulties with recruiting and retaining staff, and 87% reported that this was largely due to wage disparities between the amount that community child and youth mental health workers are paid when compared to those in the hospital or education sectors. Is the ministry committed to addressing these significant wage disparities in order to address this shortage of clinical staff? If so, how much new funding was dedicated to addressing these wage disparities in this year’s budget?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Thank you for the question. Just maybe a couple of points: One, the investments that have happened since 2019 have increased. It’s $800 million in new base funding. That doesn’t include one-time funding generally. If you add that up, it’s certainly well over one billion new dollars into the community mental health space since 2019. In 2019 the government had a 5% across the board for the children and youth space. In 2023 it also had an another 5% across the board, and in this budget this past year there was a reference to an additional $303 million over four years, which amounts to a 4% increase to the sector as a whole as well. So since 2019 there’s been over 14% in the number across the boards in investing in the children and youth mental health sector programming on top of additional funding just generally around programming as well.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

If I may clarify, the $800 million was for both the child and adult mental health sectors? Only $200 million actually went to child and youth mental health?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

An additional $200 million.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Yes, since 2019?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

That’s right.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Those increases that you mentioned, 5% per annum or 4% per annum, are just barely above inflation. These wage discrepancies that are being described are in the range of 20% to 50% below those in the acute sector, in the education sector. How do you expect child and youth mental health agencies to try to match when we’re only giving them a fraction of the disparity that they’re facing in terms of wages currently?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

I think a key component of that, in response, is one of the recommendations that the Auditor General identified, which is the need for a health human resources plan for it. The ministry has accepted that recommendation, and the Ministry of Health has over the last while developed a health human resource plan that looks at education expansion and clinical supports, scope of practice, looking to see if others can also support providing care, different pathways to international practitioners and looking at different ways for retention and distribution. There’s a need to bring the mental health and addiction sector more into that, and so we’re starting to look at opportunities to be able to do that, mindful of the compensation issues that you’ve raised.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Thank you so much. In their 2020 report, Children’s Mental Health Ontario called for an additional $150 million per year to be able to hire the amount of staff they would need to reduce the wait time to counselling within 30 days. The amount of investment that you’re describing falls quite short of an additional $150 million per year. How does the ministry reconcile that shortcoming? And what is the ministry’s intended wait time for first point of counselling and how are you going to get there?

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

I can maybe start on the HHR one. We have been developing a health human resource strategy just globally and we want to do it more specifically for the area of mental health and addictions. We haven’t done it specifically, so that’s kind of our next order of business that we’re going to be working on. We work closely with the Treasury Board to conduct a workforce data survey, in partnership. Some of the things you pointed out—those are what the sector is telling us as well. We need the be able to assess compensation gaps—all of those things as we develop our HHR strategy, health human resources strategy. We need to explore workload guidelines and retention, some of the things that you spoke to. We have done some things, like building the capacity that we spoke to around the training for the 2,200 existing technicians, just to start to give them some additional tools in the space. There’s a lot of work to be done and we definitely want it as a part of our broader HHR strategy. We need to have it specifically for mental health and addictions.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Great, thank you. In the report, the Auditor General identified an agency in northern Ontario which, over two years, advocated for the development of a secure treatment program to better meet the needs of children and youth in northern communities; to support children staying engaged with their communities and their families while meeting that secure, intensive treatment. The AG identified that there was no action taken on this proposal from the ministry and there’s still no access to these programs in the north. When you spoke about your new Ontario intensive treatment program, you spoke about that $22 million going towards live-in treatment but not secured treatment programs. When can communities in the north expect an investment to fill that gap of secure treatment programs that they’ve been asking for for several years?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

As part of that $22-million investment, part of it will allow us to understand where there are gaps in the system. In the north, we know that there have been some providers who have identified the need for potential secure treatment. One of our Indigenous providers, Dilico, has raised this as a potential issue in the past. While it wouldn’t technically meet the need of what we describe to be a secure treatment program, the OITP will allow us to be able to identify those opportunities for more secure treatment programming, for sure. We have been working with the existing providers right now to develop a framework so that they’re providing consistent approaches to accessing care. That’s one thing. And there has been investment for government to expand the number of secure treatment placements in the provider out in eastern Ontario and Ottawa. So there is some expansion that is under way, but we know that there are opportunities to assess for more need, for sure.

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MPP Robin Lennox

Thank you. Speaking more on the issue of concurrent disorders in terms of concurrent mental health and substance use disorders, 70% of the agencies surveyed reported that their services do not meet the needs of youth with concurrent mental health and substance use disorders. At the same time, we’ve seen that rates of opioid-related deaths among Ontario teens and youth have tripled between 2014 and 2021, and rates of treatment initiation in that same group have actually only gone down markedly. What is the ministry doing to address that gap and prevent opioid-related deaths and other substance-related harms among youth with concurrent disorders in Ontario?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

I think that I might take parts of your question the next go round. I would say that the children and youth mental health program is focused on seven core services; addiction isn’t one of them. Most of the addiction programming comes from Ontario Health, so we have a different funding line that’s associated with supporting children and youth addiction-related programming. So there are different investments that are under way. The gentlemen over here raised youth wellness hubs as an opportunity, and the deputy spoke a little bit about that. Part of that is the expansion to 32 youth wellness hubs. We have 23 that are operating right now. We also invest in programming—things like PreVenture, which is an evidence-based prevention program that targets children and youth who might have known risk factors for substance use. It is rolled out in schools through community organizations and also youth wellness hubs. I think we’re at 28 school boards right now, focusing on grades 7 to 9, and I think it’s expanding more. That’s more on the prevention side of things. And then there’s other programming that we have that is also maybe considered transitional-age youth as well. Amani, which focuses on Black youth, also has a substance use focus for that specific population, so there’s additional funding and programming that goes towards that as well for folks with concurrent disorders.

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MPP Robin Lennox

I did recall that you mentioned youth wellness hubs initially as providing evidence-based addiction treatment, but I wonder what you consider evidence-based addiction treatment that is currently delivered at youth wellness hubs?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

The program itself is part of an integrated youth services model that is actually happening across Canada. It’s actually a big programming focus of our federal, provincial and territorial organizations, and also a big focus of the federal government in terms of funding—what have you.

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

There are 10 minutes remaining.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

The program is based off of that integrated youth model and is supported by a number of data. It is run through a backbone organization called Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario, which sits out of CAMH and is being led by Dr. Jo Henderson—very well-known in the children and youth mental health space. They use a number of clinical assessment tools, and it is very data-oriented. It engages each of the youth along the way with surveys, including surveys when they leave the service. They use the best clinical knowledge to support children and youth with substance use disorders and in a measurement framework as well.

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

If I could just add, there are a couple of other programs that I think are important that touch on what you were trying to get at. We’ve got the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program, which offers cognitive behavioural therapy for youth aged 15-plus with depression and anxiety, often reoccurring with substance abuse. A lot of times, people will use to ease the symptoms of what they have in terms of their anxiety and depression—so they’ve got cognitive behavioural therapy skills. Kyle spoke about the Amani program for Black youth, which has been a really good program. It’s a culturally responsive program for Black youth aged 12 to 29, which includes integrated mental health and substance abuse services. I spoke about the Step-Up Step-Down programs earlier as well—that would kind of touch on that demographic as well, to support youth with complex needs that require stabilization either before or after hospital care. Then we did speak about the cross-sector protocol development, because you can’t operate in a silo. What’s happening on the child welfare side, what’s happening in the school—we need to have that protocol, which is what we’re working on as well. Those are other kinds of tools that we’re pulling all together.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

Just maybe some extra data points on the youth wellness hubs themselves: There have been studies published in the American Medical Association journal that show that these youth wellness hubs are diverting children and youth away from the emergency department into the community. They’re seeing the same levels of improvements in the community mental health space as they would in an outpatient hospital program as well. We’re seeing something like 39% of the youth that have access to youth wellness hubs in Ontario right now say that, without that service, they wouldn’t know where to go. We’ve got a 99% youth satisfaction rate of the services they have received from the hub themselves. They find 98% of them are saying that it’s the right way of helping that they need, and 90% of youth are satisfied with the length of time that it takes to get the service that they’re in there, so a lot of really positive metrics in terms of both the outcomes and how they are receiving the service in youth wellness hubs. I think we’ve had almost 365,000 visits up to March 31, 2025, so I am sure more have happened there.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Thank you, and I agree. I think youth wellness hubs provide a fantastic service, but they historically have not actually provided the full flight of evidence-based treatment for youth with substance-use disorders. Most often, we’re seeing those youth being referred from youth wellness hubs to adult-focused services to access opioid-agonist therapy, for example, and other medication-based services. Is there any effort within the ministry to adapt to the ongoing substance and toxic drug crisis that we’re seeing in Ontario and actually expand the offerings of the youth wellness hub to match the needs that we’re seeing among our youth, who are increasingly using substances that create more harms and increase the risk of death?

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

There are definitely referral pathways for OAT from the hubs. With the youth wellness hubs, the whole goal is almost like one-stop shopping because you can get somebody in, and then you can refer them or bring them in. I think that is what’s happening within. They’re creating a whole network. All of the hubs also have primary care. They have access to primary care, so they are able to have physicians who can prescribe. That’s why primary care connecting into that was so important.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

To develop your point, it also isn’t a place to get all care. If you need withdrawal management services, you’re not going to go to a youth wellness hub; you’ll go to a different provider. We have a number of providers that do provide live-in treatment for children and youth, so there is opportunity for pathways into that for sure.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Great. Thank you. We know that the child and youth mental health sector has been drastically underfunded in recent years. Actually, over the past 20 years, the funding has been sort of based on historical allocations, as the auditor identified, which has meant that some regions are receiving far too little and can’t offer the programs the communities need. What action has the ministry taken to address this? Are we able to move to a needs-based funding model, and on what timeline are you anticipating that might happen?

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

There’s been an increase of close to 30% since 2019-20, so there’s been a pretty significant increase in terms of the budget.

Official source

MPP Robin Lennox

Is that accounting for inflation or not?

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

It would be just the envelope-to-envelope increase, yes.

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Ms. Deborah Richardson

Yes.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

So there has been that increase. There’s also, then, additional programming. We talked about Step-Up Step-Down, for example, and adding new programming there. We’ve also added programming that, irrespective of where you are in the province, you can access without any wait times. One Stop Talk is a really good example of that brief service access to that. We’ve also invested in different programming like Telemental Health, which allows access, no matter where you are, to a psychiatrist in order to get an assessment and referrals. And we’ve heard a little bit about the Ontario intensive treatment pathway; we’ve set up a network for intensive services for that. A key component of what we’re working towards is the establishment of a core services framework for across the lifespan. Right now, we have a core service framework that’s for children and youth. We’ve engaged with a technical table with a number of clinicians and providers across the care continuity, whether that’s children and youth mental health or on the adult and addictions space, to be able to get advice about what the core services are from a lifespan perspective that we should be establishing.

Official source

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Two minutes.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

We’re working through the technical advice that we’ve heard from the table to be able to identify for that care continuum, irrespective of if you’re a child or youth or into adulthood, what should be the expected type of services that you may be able to have access to. When you take that information and you map it onto some of the work that we’re doing in the data digital space—which is able to, say, map different assets across the province of what providers are providing what service in what way—a step is to make sure that we understand those services, make sure that we’re speaking apples-to-apples about those services. You might say counselling is one thing, another person might say counselling is a different kind of thing—so being able to understand that. Through the establishment of that core services framework and that work that we talked about from the data digital collection, we will be able to better understand, across the lifespan, the different services that might be required—for children and youth is what we’re talking about today, but just in general, for mental health and addictions.

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

If I can maybe just give you the specifics on the numbers as well: It’s way more than inflation, obviously, at 29%. In 2019-20, the initial printed estimates were $406 million. Then in 2025-26, it was $526 million, which was the initial printed estimates, which is a 29.6% increase.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

And that wouldn’t include, more recently—

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

It doesn’t include the 4%.

Official source

Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

—the $303 million over the years, as well.

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MPP Robin Lennox

Great. Just returning to that question about the needs-based formula: Is there movement towards a needs-based formula rather than looking at the more historical allocations?

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

The use of the historical allocations—yes, there was a sense of base funding for particular organizations some years, but that has changed over time. At the time of the report, there were 220 or thereabouts providers. Now, there’s slightly less than that, so we see reallocations happening all the time. We work with the lead agencies on reallocations, as their new pro-rate comes up, in understanding who might be better to deliver that service—

Official source

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

We’re at time.

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Mr. Kyle MacIntyre

So there is reallocation and looking at services pretty constantly.

Official source

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

We move to the final round of questions, beginning with the government side. We’re beginning with MPP Cooper. Please begin. You have 20 minutes in total.

Official source

Mrs. Michelle Cooper

From fast-tracking cancer drugs to opening HART hubs, the government has been implementing a number of innovative solutions to bolster our health care system. Can you outline some of the innovative steps the province is and has taken to support the mental health and well-being of children and youth in Ontario?

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

Thanks so much for your question. This is a really good conversation, actually. I’m really enjoying—I wouldn’t say I thought I would enjoy SCOPA, but I do, because it’s important. It’s important for those of us that have young people in our lives. We’re really aware that the experiences of children and youth today are vastly different than it was 10 years ago. Two of my kids graduated from high school during COVID. It has really changed things, and we need innovative solutions to effectively serve children and youth and families today. The Roadmap to Wellness is Ontario’s plan to build a comprehensive and connected mental health and addiction system that delivers high-quality, evidence-based services across the care continuum and across the lifespan. Roadmap to Wellness was developed from consultations with hundreds of mental health and addictions organizations, front-line staff, hospitals, advocates, experts and people with lived experience. The plan will help improve mental health services for communities across Ontario and support patients and families living with mental health and addiction challenges. Built on the four pillars that we spoke about, the road map lays out a path towards meaningful improvements to the care Ontarians receive, enabled by the $3.8 billion over 10 years that the province is investing to expand mental health and addiction services. The plan’s four pillars support the delivery of the services people need, where and when they need them. These pillars are improving quality, expanding existing services, implementing innovative solutions and improving access. To help achieve the goals of the road map, more than $800 million in new base funding has been invested since 2019-20 to maintain and expand mental health and addiction services across the province. A significant portion of this new funding has been invested to support the third pillar of the Roadmap to Wellness, which is implementing innovative solutions. The Ministry of Health has been investing in new, innovative, evidence-based programming. I spoke about this a little bit earlier—it was the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program, to provide access to evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy for people living with depression and anxiety. Cognitive behavioural therapy is recognized as an effective intervention for depression and anxiety, the most common mental health issues to impact Ontarians. It builds resilience by equipping people with the lifelong skills they need to manage their mental health and overall well-being. It can lower the number of emergency department visits and admissions in Ontario, contributing to the broader provincial objective of ending hallway health care. The Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program is the first of its kind in Canada in terms of its scope, scale, focus on quality and public reporting on outcomes. There are no out-of-pocket costs for clients who participate in the program. The program is offered in various forms that best meet a client’s needs, including telephone coaching and clinical counselling, psychoeducational groups, Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy and face-to-face group and individual counselling. Youth as young as the age of 15 can access this programming to support them in dealing with anxiety and/or depression. Since launching in 2017, over 100,000 patients have benefited from the program. Demand for mental health services across the care continuum has continued to grow, placing a strain on the service system and impacting access for clients. To address and build off the success of implementing programming like the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program, the Ministry of Health has implemented several innovative programs aimed at enabling timely intervention by providing low-barrier access to mental health and addiction services. One such program—and ADM MacIntyre spoke about this—is One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant, which launched provincially in September 2023. This program was developed by the provincial lead agency consortium in 2019 and under the leadership of Strides Toronto support services, the lead agency for the Toronto service area. With the continued support of the consortium and other sector partners, it has become a key provincial resource for children, youth and families. One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant successfully leveraged provincial technology investments made during the pandemic to offer virtual access to immediate, in-the-moment, evidence-based, single-session therapy for children, youth and their families. The service is available to any child or youth, no matter where they live in the province, and it’s available in more than 200 languages and dialects, including—Kyle spoke about this—American Sign Language. It’s a free, confidential service that lets children and youth get immediate mental health support with a registered therapist. And there is no wait time for this service, which is amazing, because when you’re feeling like you want to talk to someone, you want to talk to somebody. The One Stop Talk model was informed by research as well as the voices of those with lived and living experience. Unlike traditional therapeutic models that may span weeks, months or even years, One Stop Talk offers an immediate opportunity for clients to derive meaningful benefits from just one meeting with a clinician, similar to a walk-in-service model of primary care. This One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant model enables equity of access for individuals right across the province and leverages capacity among child and mental health service providers across the province as well. Clinicians providing services through One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant are rostered from agencies across the province and are available to any child or youth in the province, no matter where they live. Kyle gave the example of Windsor being able to service somewhere in the north. This means a 16-year-old in Sault Ste. Marie can access evidence-based counselling from a clinician in Toronto without having to leave their community and their home. One Stop Talk is a team of therapists who are registered health professionals, who can provide psychotherapy services. They are experts in giving focused help in a single session. They regularly undergo reviews and meet with supervisors to make sure they’re offering the best care. The program also has a continued focus on improvement and skill development of the team. Here’s how it works. Children and youth and their parents can access the service by phoning the dedicated line at 1-855-416-TALK—8255—or they can access services online at onestoptalk.ca. It starts with a greeter and welcoming, and questions are asked to better understand the child or youth’s needs. Then the child and/or parent is connected to a registered therapist, in under five minutes, for a session. Sessions are always free and usually last up to one hour. During the session, the therapist will talk about what the child or youth is going through and feeling. Then, together, a plan will be developed to help the child or youth move forward and feel better. If additional or ongoing services are needed, the therapist will offer to connect the child or youth and/or parent with a One Stop Talk navigator that will connect them with services within their local area or other appropriate services that they may need. Before the session ends, a referral will be made to connect that child with what they need. There is no limit on the number of times a young person can access the service, and it can be accessed anywhere in the province. For children and youth and their families, this means that access to service can be just one phone call, text or a web click away. Numerous studies have evaluated the efficacy of single-session therapy, particularly in comparison to longer-term therapeutic interventions. While single-session therapy is not a replacement for ongoing therapy in complex cases, evidence indicates that it can be highly effective and all that’s required for certain client populations and presenting issues. In the face of growing demand, pressures on the mental health care system, One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant is also an effective wait-list management tool, as it takes people off the wait-list whose needs are less intensive or complex and can effectively be met through a single-session counselling model. Again, there are no wait times for this service. For those who require additional services, it does get them to the right service without having to call around to different providers, navigate the system themselves and potentially be put on a wait-list for the wrong service that they don’t need. Since its launch, the service has seen a steady increase in usage numbers. Within two years of the provincial launch, there have been more than 47,000 connections with One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant. These are people reaching out to learn more about the service, either for themselves or, frequently, for their children. It also represents children or youth who might have a mental health related question but are not yet ready to participate in counselling. Since the launch, there have also been almost 4,500 completed clinical sessions. The Ministry of Health also supports the child and youth mental health sector to adopt innovative models of care, leverage research to design services and build awareness of emerging evidence to inform high-quality care by funding the Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. The Knowledge Institute is a key provincial expert partner that mobilizes the most current evidence and knowledge and provides system supports to the children and youth mental health and addiction sector. They work closely with lead child and mental health agencies and the broader community-based child and youth mental health sector to make services more responsive to the unique needs of children and youth, easier to navigate and better integrated with services and supports in other sectors. The Knowledge Institute also works with service providers to build sector capacity to deliver high-quality services. This includes working with the sector to implement evidence-based practices, to meet and respond to the changing needs of children and youth and families, and to implement data collection solutions to measure activities and outcomes. The Knowledge Institute is leading the development of quality standards for the children and youth mental health sector, with a current focus on live-in, intensive services. These standards will provide evidence-based guidance to providers across the province and support them in keeping up with innovative solutions. In recognition of research that has consistently demonstrated that the early years of a child’s life—especially from zero to six—are extremely important in terms of brain development, the Knowledge Institute has also begun to focus its efforts on opportunities to enhance supports for early and infant mental health, including an integrated care pathways project. The Ministry of Health is also using technology to empower children and youth to access information about mental health, addictions and related services through the funding of Resources Around Me. Resources Around Me is operated by Kids Help Phone, an organization that is well known and trusted by children and youth across Ontario and Canada. Resources Around Me is a powerful, searchable directory of over 40,000 free, trusted virtual and in-person mental health, addictions and related services. It empowers children and youth to seek services to meet their needs, and it helps them navigate the mental health, addictions and complementary human service systems. Finding the right support can be a barrier for youth.

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

Resources Around Me helps them find what they need, whether it’s an in-person youth wellness hub, a sexual health clinic or support for a specific issue like housing or substance abuse. Kids Help Phone ensures the resources listed have a high level of clinical oversight, so that children and youth know that they are accessing safe and well-researched options. It’s available 24/7 through their website. This tool provides an instant connection to support options and it has become one of the most popular pages on the Kids Help Phone site. The ministry also has committed to funding to St. Clair Child and Youth Services to support an innovative mental health program for children and youth in Lambton county, an intensive outreach treatment program. This is a three-year pilot aiming at providing flexible and accessible mental health services to meet specific local need. Over the past year, St. Clair has been collaborating with local agencies and other stakeholders and partners to better understand the local needs and identify a model to address young people with more complex mental health needs, because the community saw a 25% increase in children and youth with complex mental health needs over the past four years. An intensive outreach treatment program will deliver individual therapy, family therapy, social skills training and parent-caregiver coaching in clients’ homes, making services more accessible and personalized. This holistic approach will integrate services across health, education and child welfare sectors, providing a seamless and coordinated care experience. The program aims to treat children and youth with complex mental health issues, offering intensive services to prevent the worsening of their conditions. Intensive case management will ensure smooth transitions and continuous support, helping families navigate the mental health system effectively. The integration of support through partnerships with multiple service providers is a key component of this model. This will include the launch of a newly developed, enhanced mental health respite program, delivered by Sarnia-Lambton Rebound, along with specialized education supports offered in partnership with the Lambton Kent District School Board. The intensive outreach treatment program also provides an evidence-based assertive community treatment approach, like the adult program operated by Bluewater Health, providing intensive services in home and community settings to reduce the severity of issues. This program is aligned with the Roadmap to Wellness and the strategic goals of the Sarnia–Lambton Ontario Health Team, aiming to reimagine community-based care and create healthier communities through an integrated and innovative approach. By reducing the need for high-cost institutional programs and decreasing reliance on emergency hospital services, this program is expected to significantly enhance the mental health landscape for youth in Lambton county. This intensive outreach team program is a significant step forward in ensuring that children and youth receive the support they need. I just want to share another similar innovative, collaborative initiative that the ministry is supporting. It’s a multidisciplinary intensive services team pilot led by the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa, in partnership with the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa. This initiative is also being piloted in the adjacent services of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry through a collaboration with Cornwall Community Hospital in Prescott and Russell, in collaboration with Valoris pour enfants et adultes de Prescott-Russell. A number—13—child and youth mental health agencies are being engaged to support this pilot initiative, alongside other community partners, including children’s aid societies, school boards, hospitals, primary care and police. This initiative is designed to offer an innovative approach to deliver intensive mental health treatment to children and youth served by the society with complex needs, including dual diagnoses and those who face barriers to timely and appropriate intensive mental health treatment. The initiative includes a dedicated pathway for Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa clients—

Official source

The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Two minutes remaining.

Official source

Ms. Deborah Richardson

—through a one call, one click, centralized access mechanism for children and youth services in the Ottawa area. This facilitates screening, intake and initial assessment for the service. The initiative also includes care coordinators who work closely with clients and caregivers to create an integrated care plan that aligns with the client’s needs, connects them to the services needed and provides immediate, on-the-spot clinical support as well as all of the other service connection points. The initiative offers a range of specialized services, including in-home services, delivered by a multidisciplinary team—or “pod,” as they refer to it. These services can be accessed depending on each client’s needs. In addition to the care coordinator, the pod includes psychotherapists, psychologists for assessment and treatment, behavioural specialists for assessment and treatment, addictions consultants, occupational therapists, caregiver capacity-building, mobile crises response, trauma and attachment therapy, children and youth mental health therapy groups and mental health and addictions nurses. Positive outcomes are already being reported through the children who have been going through this pilot. This pilot reduces service silos, increases partnerships and collaboration among service providers, which means that usage of publicly funded resources are being optimized. More cost-effective community resources are being used, where appropriate, where more specialized services are accessed. The initiative has improved client mental health and well-being through seamless and wraparound care and improving stabilization of living environments, including preventing child welfare placement disruptions.

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The Chair (Mr. Tom Rakocevic)

Thank you. We’re at time. We now move to the third party. MPP Fairclough, you have 20 minutes.

Official source