Community Knowledge Centre - Toronto Community Foundation

About this organization

Mission

Oolagen's mission is to listen, engage, assist and empower youth and families in recognizing their strengths, expanding their capabilities and enhancing their wellbeing and mental health.

Through listening, we gain understanding, in assisting youth and families; we help them discover their own skills and knowledge for life. Through engaging, we encourage youth to adopt a new more hopeful view of themselves and their lives. Through empowerment, youth are able to grow to their full potential.

History of Organization

Oolagen, an accredited youth mental health centre, has been helping Toronto youth and their families for more than 42 years. Highly respected for its work, Oolagen also serves as a University of Toronto teaching facility. Our long-term partners include the Toronto District School Board, Sick Kids Hospital, the Children’s Aid Society and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, as well as other children’s mental health agencies and community groups.

Accolades and Accomplishments

Since its beginning, in 1967, Oolagen has helped approximately 50,000 youth overcome the devastating effects of emotional, social and psychological difficulties. Oolagen helps youth suffering from abuse, eating disorders, addictions, family violence, depression and self-harming behaviours, just to name a few.  Each year Oolagen reaches more than 4,000 Toronto youth and their families through leading edge treatment and prevention programs. On average, it costs $2,500 to treat a youth and/or family for one year at Oolagen.

Programs

>What's Up walk-in
>Families With A Parent Experiencing Mental Health Difficulties
>Intergenerational Alliance

At Oolagen, we help kids overcome emotional barriers and build self-respect, self-esteem and confidence.  We work to help them stay in school, develop life-skills and learn new ways to manage anger and work cooperatively with others.  We help build trust between kids and their parents. Oolagen also develops and conducts preventative workshops in schools on topics ranging from abuse, drugs, gangs, bullying and date rape.

Our programs include two residential treatment facilities, on-site counselling services in our office and in 3 high schools, an outpatient counselling program, a daily - Monday through Friday - walk-in clinic, Wraparound programs that help homeless young mothers stabilize their lives and that keep youth at home and out of care, and an intensive counselling service that provides in-home and community based support and interventions. Oolagen doesn’t give up on kids. We do whatever it takes to keep them on track or turn them in a positive direction.

What's Up walk-in

Oolagen is a partner in Toronto’s only city‐wide walk-in counselling service that is open 5 days a week. The clinic provides quick access to counselling service for youth 13 to 18 years old and their families. This is an opportunity for immediate problem solving and therapeutic conversations, as well as referral to other services if required.

For many, a single appointment is enough, although the clinic may be used more than once if necessary. This program provides immediate help for concerns such as depression, suicidal ideation, family violence, job loss, marital problems, parent/child conflict, immigration and reunifications, etc., just to name a few.

Parents and caregivers are welcome to attend the clinic on their own. Many caregivers find it beneficial to consult with a therapist without their child.

No appointment or health card needed.

Mondays:        9:00 a.m. –   1:00 p.m.   (Last appointment 12 noon) 

Tuesdays:       12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.   (Last appointment 6:30 p.m.)                         

Wednesdays:  3:00 p.m. –    6:00 p.m.   (Last Appointment at 5:00) 

Thursdays:      9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.     (Last Appointment at 12:00) 

Fridays:          9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.      (Last Appointment at 12:00) 

Funding and Program Partners

In 2005, we started our walk-in clinic in order to help youth and families cope while they were on our waitlist for individual or family counselling. Winners Merchants International L.P. has supported Oolagen's walk-in clinic from the beginning.

We recently expanded our walk-in to provide daily service from Monday to Friday. This city-wide initiative - What`s Up walk-in - is in partnership with East Metro Youth Services and Yorktown Family Services.

Program Impact

Since we expanded our hours in 2009, wait times for service have decreased from one year to three months. Each year we help 300 youth and their families through our walk-in clinic.

Please note Oolagen's walk-in clinic serves youth 13-18 and their family members.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“The 2008 health profile of Toronto residents (12 years old and over) reveals that just over half (57%) perceive themselves to be in very good or excellent health, (compared to 61% in 2007) and 12.8% are in fair or poor health;

• 77.5% report being in very good or excellent mental health;
• 86.4% are satisfied or very satisfied with life, but 21.2% (over the age of 15) experience “quite a lot” of life stress (for 35-44 year olds, the percentage rises to 25.2%).

One quarter (25.5%) are sometimes or often limited from participation in activities by disability or illness.” (Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009)

"Young adults (aged 20 - 34) have, on average, a weaker sense of belonging than older adults." (Toronto's Vital Signs 2011)

Participant Vignette

"I felt I was able to talk about my feelings and have a weight lifted off my shoulders. I feel less stressed and feel much better about myself. I gained hope."

"It makes me feel that I'm not alone in dealing with everything. I have something else to rely on, something else I can trust to help me."

I'm grateful the service is available. It helped me get a lot of my anxiety and worries out, telling someone who wants to listen really helped.

"I was actually able to trust the counsellor enough to talk to her. It helped me get problems off my chest. I was able to discuss things, issues, problems that I can't talk about with most people."

"It has made me more confident that I will be able to deal with my issues. It was a relief to finally talk to someone."

"It gave me more options on what I can do to help myself though this tough and difficult time."

"It helped me realize what my strengths are and what I want to do in the future (as a career)."

"It helped me put my problem into perspective and learn how to deal with it."

-Comments from participants.

Families With A Parent Experiencing Mental Health Difficulties

Families with a parent experiencing mental health difficulties face stigma that sometimes gets in the way of them asking for and getting help. Sometimes children are removed from their homes. While the concerns faced by, and for, these families cannot be dismissed, we believe there are other 'stories' about these families that invite hopefulness and new possibilities for relationships and identities.

In collaboration with Dulwich Centre of Australia, Oolagen is gathering stories of life in families with a parent experiencing mental health difficulties. Through the telling of stories, young people and parents reflect on their own experience and offer their learnings to others. The stories are captured in documents or on video and shared with other parents and professionals.

The project is open to all young persons and parents who might find it helpful to share their story or hear the stories of others 'in the same boat' and/or who might want to contribute to an anti-stigma initiative.

Funding and Program Partners

Ontario Works provided funding for Working Life, a documentary by the Skyworks Foundation on Oolagen's work, with a focus on how families facing mental health challenges are accomodated in the workplace.

Program Impact

This anti-stigma film is a very powerful testament to the strength in families and the power of knowledge.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“One-quarter of Toronto’s youth lack a sense of belonging to their local community, a feeling that increases significantly as they reach young adulthood” (Toronto’s vital Signs, 2010)

oolagen's Youth Services increases a young person’s sense of belonging by:

• Engaging youth in identifying issues that affect them and their communities and developing responses for positive change

• Building skills and providing opportunities for voluntarism, community involvement. leadership programs and peer support

• Connecting youth to groups, organizations and individuals within the community

Participant Vignette

Peter was a young child when his older brother committed suicide. Coping with grief and depression over the loss, his mother went to work, which gave her a new purpose and a sense of connection to her community of co-workers. Work was instrumental in keeping her afloat. Peter's life was affected by his brother's suicide and he sometimes experiences depression. Although he loves his work as a youth worker, he recently experienced burnout.

"Mental illness is not limiting, but attitudes toward mental illness can restrict an individual's sense of his own potential." - Peter

Intergenerational Alliance

Many newcomer families experience 'culture clash' and/or 'intergenerational conflict' between grandparents, parents and their offspring. In response, Oolagen has developed an acclaimed program which facilitates conversations across generations and cultures. Through art, drama, and story-telling, the intergenerational alliance offers families an opportunity to increase understanding of each other’s challenges, hopes and dreams and to bridge the differences between life 'back home' and life in Canada.

The intergenerational alliance aims to facilitate the development of a network of support for parents and grandparents in the St. James Town community.  It provides opportunities for participants to share what they know about raising youth and to do this in a way that will honour their own traditions and also help them to find success as parents in Canada.

Funding and Program Partners

The RBC Foundation has supported this work for two years. Their funding has enabled us to reach more new, at-risk, Canadian populations. This year we are working with Mandarian speaking Chinese families in the St. James Town community.

Program Impact

To date we have worked with four different communities of new comer Canadians. The original groups were Tamil families and a cross-cutural group, both in St. James Town (SJT). Last year the Tamil group from SJT facilitated the program with at-risk Tamil families in Scarborough. This year the Tamil facilitators are working with Madarin speaking Chinese families in St. James Town.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Toronto’s greatest asset?

Immigrants who make this city their home and want to contribute skills and experience”

“Residents in the City’s poorest areas were proportionately less healthy than their wealthier neighbourhoods.”

“Today we see not one city united but the emergence of three cities in Toronto resulting in over one million people in a city of 2.7 million, living in low and very low income neighbourhoods.  If these trends continue as predicted, by 2025 low and very low income neighbourhoods will cover 60% of our city.” (Toronto’s Vital Signs 2011)

Participant Vignette

"Through this program we are working very hard to make a good life for us and to help our elders and the community."  Tamil youth

Just as a kite curves through the air and flies with many ups and downs, our lives also involve ups and downs. Our elders say that back home  where there are not many facilities, technology or wealth they lived a hard but happy life. But here with all the facilities, technology and wealth, physically they are comfortable but emotionally they are not okay as it is hard for them to adjust.

It is not only that parents and grandparents should listen and understand the youth. In the meantime, we the youth also should listen to the elders to get their views. The older generation is holding the future generation, as a person holding the string on the kite, since they have many experiences in life. Therefore we should take their guidance positiviely to our own advantage to be a better person.