Mental Health
Child & Adolescent Services
Contact Us
100 Main St. East, Suite 220
(2nd floor), use Commercial Entrance
Our program is open Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Late appointments are available on a limited basis and upon request. The building is closed weekends, and holidays.
Mental Health Services for Children, Youth and their Families. Child and Adolescent Services is a community-based children’s mental health clinic. It is part of Public Health Services in the City of Hamilton. We provide mental health counselling and treatment for children and youth, under 18, and their families. Our services are confidential and free.
We support children, youth, and families with:
Child and Adolescent Services offers the following types of support:
How to Access Ongoing Counselling
To request ongoing counselling and therapy services, you will need a referral from Lynwood Charlton Centre (LCC). This will help to ensure that you are directed to the most appropriate services given your unique needs.
You can connect with Lynwood Charlton Centre (LCC) by:
Phone: 905-389-1361
Virtual Counselling: One Stop Talk
What is One Stop Talk?
One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant (OST/PM) offers free virtual counselling services and seamless entry into child and youth mental health services across Ontario. The program serves as a single access point to mental health services for children and youth under 18 years of age, connecting them with registered and experienced therapists across the province. Our agency's therapists and an integrated network of province-wide infant, child, and youth mental health agencies support this program.
Service Details
- Counselling by registered therapists spanning Ontario, including our agency's therapists
- Immediate access to free therapy; no prior booking or appointment required
- Focuses on addressing one issue at a time and provides the freedom to access the service as many times as needed
- OST/PM is not anonymous – the program requires children and youth to provide information about themselves, including their name, date of birth, and postal code, to receive service
- Start with a conversation, leave with a plan. No matter why you connect, children and youth co-create a personalized plan with their therapist, which is shared with them
- Navigation services are available if additional assistance beyond the session is needed. OST/PM directly refers clients to additional services as close to them as possible in the child and youth mental health sector
- OST/PM has dedicated Francophone therapists and interpretation services to over 200+ languages, including ASL
Who can contact One Stop Talk/Parlons maintenant?
- Children and youth under 18 years of age located in Ontario
- Parents and caregivers located in Ontario are recommended to access the service with their child(ren)
When is the service available?
- Monday to Friday, 12 noon to 8 pm EST
- Saturday 12 noon to 4 pm EST
Entry to the service closes 60 minutes before posted closure time to allow all clients to be served by end of service.
What can we help with?
No issue is too big or small. If it's important to you, it's important to us.
To connect with a therapist, visit onestoptalk.ca or call us at 1-855-416-TALK (8255)
If you/your child’s needs become more urgent, please:
Contact your family physician or go to your nearest Hospital Emergency Room
Call the Crisis Outreach and Support Team (COAST) at 905-972-8338 to speak with a mental health clinician available 24 hours.
Kids Help Phone: 24/7: 1-800-668-6868
Call or text 9-8-8 is available to anyone in Canada who is thinking about suicide or is worried about someone they know. For more information about the 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline, visit 988.ca (previously known as the Crisis Services Canada Line)
Before or during your first visit, we will ask you to complete a mental health questionnaire to help us get to know you. If you’d like to have your family or other significant people involved, we will ask them to complete a mental health questionnaire as well. Your answers will help us to learn more about you and what we can do to help.
We will send a link to the questionnaire by email. The questionnaires can typically take up to 20-30 minutes to complete.
If you would like support to complete the online questionnaire through our on-line Client Portal, please call us at 905-546-2424 ext. 3678
We are a team of professionals who work together to support you based on your individual needs, whether you are cared for virtually or in-person. Our team is made up of registered professionals who provide the following services:
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Counselling and Therapy
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Occupational Therapy
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Psychological Services
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Administrative Support
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Student Interns: We are a teaching clinic. If you give permission, we may include student interns in your care.
We embrace a collaborative and compassionate approach to providing services to children, youth and families. Our approach is informed by evidence and best practice. When developing a holistic plan of care with you, we will assess and take into consideration your unique needs, the best option for services, and whether or not you would like your family members to be involved. This may include a referral to other community service providers.
If you need to make, change or cancel an appointment, please contact your therapist directly or our program secretary at 905-546-2424 ext. 3678 as soon as possible.
We do our best to provide an appointment time that is convenient. Please understand that there are many requests for an ‘afterschool’ appointment time, and we do our best to share these preferred timeslots.
If you are late, more than 20 minutes without notice, you will need to re-book another appointment.
After missing three appointments we will close your referral. This ensures that Child and Adolescent Services can offer counseling service within a short time to children, youth, and families. If your referral has been closed for two months or more, you will need to call Lynwood Charlton Centre (LCC) by:Phone: 905-389-1361 to initiate a new referral.
We protect your personal health information, and we ask you for your consent before we share your information with others. In some cases, someone else may be able to provide consent on your behalf. This will be discussed further during your first visit as we know you may have questions. We will discuss situations when you have the right to keep your information private from anyone you choose, including family members. We will also discuss situations when others might be able to access your information.
We also want parents/caregivers to feel comfortable to share information. This information will be kept within your care team, unless we ask for further consent to share it.
There are times when privacy can’t be maintained due to safety.
Reasons for this:
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If a child under the age of 18 is being hurt or abused, or at risk of being hurt or abused
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If anyone is in immediate danger of hurting themselves or someone else
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If a regulated health professional is or has been sexually inappropriate with someone
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If we are required by law to release the records
Questions about the collection of this personal information can be directed to the therapist you are working with. Alternately, please contact the Manager of Child and Adolescent Services, Lynn Foye at 905-546-2424 ext. 3697.
We will ask you to complete short questionnaires throughout your care. The questionnaires will ask you about how you are doing and your experience of care. This information helps us keep track of what has been helpful for you in service and how we can better meet your needs.
Using information to improve services
Sometimes, we group your responses from the questionnaires together with responses from other youth and families to look at how well our services are doing overall. When the information is grouped, any identifying information (name, address, date of birth) is removed so your privacy is maintained. Your information helps us to improve our services and respond better to the needs of children, youth and families in our community.
Research
Research is an important part of the work we do. Through research we can learn more about the experiences of children, youth and families and how best to support them. We will ask you whether you and your family would like to be involved in current or future research. You can choose not to take part in research. Your decision will not impact your care in any way.
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