What is One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant?
One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant offers children, youth, and their families immediate access to free mental health supports when and how they need them. The program provides single-session counselling support and ensures direct referral to additional services when needed. Services are provided through an integrated network of infant, child and youth mental health agencies across Ontario.

You will receive:

• Counselling from experienced clinicians from across the province
• In the moment access to counselling, no appointment needed
• Access to One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant after hours and on weekends
• A plan you to take with you after the session that you co-create
• Direct connection to services in your community within the same visit, as needed
• The opportunity to self-select service when it’s right for you

Who can contact One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant?

• Children and Youth within 18 years of age
• Parents and caregivers of children and youth within 18 years of age

Help Ahead: Access for Infants, Children, Youth & Families

Help Ahead is a free referral phone service to help connect infants, children, youth up to 18 years old and their families to mental health and addiction services in their community. Our goal is to help those in need find and get mental health help as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Anyone under the age of 18 experiencing a mental health issue or anyone who wants to support someone under the age of 18 and wants access to mental health services can call.

If you are a young person, you might call if you:

• Feel anxious or worried
• Feel depressed, sad or angry
• Are being bullied
• Don’t feel yourself…
• Want more information about mental health and addiction services in your community.

If you are a parent/caregiver of an infant or child, you might call if:

• Your infant/child is crying inconsolably; having tantrums; irregular sleep or eating patterns;
• You are worried about your infant/child’s development; feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by parenting; or asking, “is this just a phase?”
• You want more information about mental health and addiction services in your community.

Service providers, doctors, teachers, school social workers, child protection services and any other support service can call Help Ahead too for more information, but we will need the expressed consent of the person or parent to refer to a service.

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The What’s Up Walk-In® Clinic is Toronto’s only free, six day a week mental health counselling walk-in service for children, youth, young adults, and families. The clinic helps with issues such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation, sexual identity matters, bullying, behavioural concerns, addictions, and anything else that might be on one’s mind. All the information you provide is confidential.

Therapists offer single sessions up to an hour long. We don’t judge. We will support you in your concerns and work collaboratively with you. The focus is on abilities, resources, and skills that you have, or you want to develop. Together we will target a priority concern and develop a plan with you that you feel comfortable with. If you feel you need more help, you can come back to the What’s Up Walk-In. All our therapists are clinically trained.

The clinic is barrier free, and accessible. No health card or appointment is necessary and it’s completely free!  The What’s Up Walk-In network is a collection of 6 agencies operating at 8 sites across the City of Toronto.

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Children, youth up to age 18, their mental health professional and families can access psychiatric consultation via virtual platform. Youth and family must be connected to a service provider to support the referral process.

This service requires a referral by a mental health professional who has worked with the child/youth and family and is knowledgeable of their situation. The mental health professional will be involved in the entire process following the psychiatric consultation and will follow up with the client on any recommendations.

All referral forms must be faxed to 416-926-1784. If you have any questions, please email the Urban Tele-Mental Health Service Coordinator at urbantelementalhealth@stridestoronto.ca or call us at 416-438-3697 ext. 21361.

Our Intensive Child and Family Service is offered to children and their caregivers who are experiencing social, emotional, and/or behavioural challenges that interfere with their daily lives and may lead to family breakdown in either their home, school and/or community. Often families eligible for this service are living with complex needs that may be impacting multiple domains of their lives.

Services are provided in-home, in-community, in-office or other settings which would be most helpful to supporting change. These services are provided by a Child and Family Therapist who will meet as frequently as required to help make a difference, offering service in a flexible manner that may include individual treatment, family and/or group therapy.

Family Counselling is intended to help caregivers explore their concerns about their child with a trained therapist. The goals of counselling services are to help your family get an understanding of your concerns and to enhance problem solving skills; as well, to give your family an opportunity to learn effective ways to cope with any different challenges.

Benefits of Family Counselling may include:

• Receiving help to define family goals
• Finding ways of achieving the goals and improving communication in your relationships
• Learning new information about your child’s personality or development
• Connecting or coordinating services with other community groups and activities
• Communicating with your child’s school or day care
• Learning more effective or useful parenting strategies
• Receiving an assessment to help with treatment planning (e.g., psychological assessment)
• Experiencing a safe place to talk about painful events that have affected your child

Access to this group is through Intake.

Day Treatment is an intensive therapeutic classroom setting for children, aged 4-12, experiencing social, emotional or behavioural issues and who have had difficulty being successful in their current school environment. These children and their caregivers may also be at risk for breakdown in their home and/or community.

The program is based on a multidisciplinary milieu treatment model that provides in-class care, family treatment and group therapy. Members of the milieu team include: Child Therapists who work in the classroom, providing evidence based group intervention with the children and individual support to the children as needed; Child and Family Therapists who work with the children providing individual treatment, family treatment and group therapy; Teachers who work in the classroom teaching the academic work; a Consulting Psychologist who conducts assessments, provides clinical consultation; and Supervisors-Day Treatment/Family Treatment Services who provide clinical supervision. Service duration is determined in collaboration between the caregiver and the multidisciplinary milieu team. One year of treatment is the recommended length of service.

There are six classrooms of approximately six students each in three separate schools. Two of the schools are in the Toronto District School Board and one is in the Toronto Catholic District School Board. The Strides Toronto Day Treatment program serves East Toronto (Scarborough) and East York region of Toronto.

Caregiver Readiness

Caregivers are in a state of readiness to make use of the intensive program including weekly participation. Group attendance is mandatory and occurs weekly between September and December. Caregivers participate in weekly family sessions for the remainder of the academic year.

ADHD Seminars are a psychoeducation-based group for parents of children ages 4 to 12 years old with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The seminars are identified by topics and provide an opportunity for parents to learn more about ADHD, the symptoms, the research, and its impact on children at home, school and in the community. Parents can access the seminar by contacting intake or asking their current worker.

The seminars are offered September – May and each seminar is approximately 1.5 to 2 hours. Seminars are offered on a monthly basis; families can choose which seminars they would like to attend. Parents learn to understand the disorder and the impact is has on children’s learning and their behaviour. Trained therapists who are well versed about this disorder provide knowledge and help parents to understand their children’s needs better and respond to their children in appropriate ways.

Interested participants can write to either krishna.vora@stridestoronto.ca or Thabitha.winfred@stridestoronto.ca to be put on the mailing list. 

Child Care Consultation provide services to licensed child care related to children with extra support needs and their families.

Child Consultation Staff are trained professionals who:

• Support child care programs to build inclusive environments;
• Work with child care staff to develop and carry out strategies that support children and families;
• Deliver training to support learning around inclusive practices.

All requests go through child care centres. Additional information may be obtained by contacting the Manager, Family Connections at 416-321-5464 ext. 482 or Loraine.bairstow@stridestoronto.ca

This program is funded through the City of Toronto’s Every Child Belongs Model.

One in ten children need extra help developing speech and language skills. Without help, it may be harder for these children to listen, talk, read, and play with others. Strides Preschool Speech and Language Program (PSL) supports children living in the east area of Toronto achieve their optimal communication development.

Strides PSL offers the following services to children from birth until they are eligible to start full-day kindergarten: assessment, consultation to parents, community-based children’s programs, and other professionals, parent training and information sessions; group and individual speech and language intervention, and referral to a wide range of child and family services in the community.

Service duration
The type and duration of service provided are determined based on the child’s level of communication functioning and caregivers’ preferences for service plan options. Services may range from consultation every few months to participation in weekly therapy sessions that typically are offered once a week for approximately six weeks.

For more information about the program, click here.

The Preschool Speech and Language Program at Strides Toronto is part of a community partnership led by Surrey Place Centre, in collaboration with The Hanen Centre, Lumenus Community Services, Macaulay Child Development Centre and George Hull Family and Child Centre.