May 7, 2025

Supporting Youth Mental Health in Hamilton

St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton continues to offer expert care and services for young adults and youth between the ages of 17 and 25 living with mental health or substance use concerns, or both. Thanks in part to government funding, paired with generous donations, St. Joe’s is committed to creating sustainable programs that serve our community’s vulnerable youth in a way that’s compassionate, patient informed, peer-supported, and clinically proven. 

Youth Adult Substance Program

A $600,000 gift from the Marta & Owen Boris Foundation helped launch a Young Adult Substance Use Program at St. Joe’s that provides help early on, so that young adults wanting to make a change to their substance use behaviours can have the best chance of avoiding a lifetime of addiction. Experimentation with substances often starts in the teens and peaks in young adulthood. While most age out or move away from the use of alcohol, cannabis or other drugs, for others it can be a lifelong battle.

“We have a small window of time at a pivotal point in young adults’ lives to intervene and develop healthy alternatives to substance use. While we’re already using current best-practices, it’s imperative that we listen to and learn from our clients to continuously improve the quality of the program, thereby increasing the likelihood of youth sticking with the treatment plan and providing them with the very best chance of recovery,” said Dr. James MacKillop, international addictions expert, holder of the Peter Boris Chair in Addictions Research, and Director of the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research at St. Joe’s.

Youth Wellness Centre

The Youth Wellness Centre (YWC) helps support young people by providing access to confidential and expert care for mental health and substance use concerns, no matter what barriers they may be facing. Clinical care is under four streams: early intervention, transition support, YouThrive – for Black, Indigenous or racialized youth, and mobile mental health clinics that meet clients where they’re at throughout the city.

Since its inception, the YWC’s work has been supported by more than $3.2 million in donations from individuals, corporations and foundations alike. Those gifts have helped to expand the physical footprint of the YWC, establish new programs designed to support racialized and gender questioning youth, supplies for art therapy, running and poetry writing groups, peer support worker integration, nutritious snacks, warm winter apparel, empowerment grants to support clients in achieving their recovery goals, and so much more.  

Cleghorn Early Intervention and Psychosis Clinic

At St. Joe’s, the Cleghorn Early Intervention Clinic helps support young people who are experiencing symptoms of early psychosis. The Cleghorn program was officially established at St. Joe’s in 2005 and set a foundation for youth and family-centred mental health care that would spread within our program and across the province. Over 300 clients and families rely on Cleghorn’s services every year. Based on provincially mandated standards and evidence-based practices, the Cleghorn program develops treatment plans based on each patient’s individual needs and aims to improve the quality of life beyond symptom reduction for patients.

Since 2021, the Cleghorn Clinic has been the recipient of two grants ($56,000 from the Hamilton Community Foundation and a $20,000 grant from the City of Hamilton) that helped support the development of an innovative new model of care that embedded an occupational therapist in employment services, healthcare setting and workplaces themselves. This model offered individuals targeted mental health therapies and employment supports for individuals coping with mental illness. 

“Engaging in meaningful and productive activities is important for anyone, and this is no different for young people recovering from psychosis. This project has shown that, with the right supports, not only can young people recovering from mental illness find success in the workplace, but so can our system of healthcare providers, employers and employees – to everyone’s benefit,” says Brian Cooper, Manager of the Cleghorn Clinic.