As a Lead Agency for child and youth mental health, Kinark is committed to supporting and collaborating with our community partners to strengthen the child and youth mental health sector in all our program areas.
In 2019, Kinark, the Peterborough Regional Health Centre, and Peterborough Youth Services partnered to establish TALK NOW, a walk-in mental health service for children and youth and their families in Peterborough. The free service is a short-term intervention to provide timely access to mental health services to children and youth under the age of 18 in the community. The service was developed to address the long wait time for children and youth in Peterborough to access mental health services.
Children and youth have access to a single counselling session from a registered professional counsellor, and can access the service as often as needed for a wide range of reasons, including bullying, separation and divorce, grief, feeling sad, depressed or anxious, gender or sexual identity, challenges at home or at school, among others.