More Ottawa kids seeking mental health help, with overnight texting surging

Young people in Ottawa are reaching out for mental health support in record numbers, with data showing a 69 per cent jump in demand over three years.

The service 1Call1Click, which coordinates more than 20 organizations providing child and youth mental health and addiction care across eastern Ontario, recorded 3,430 intakes in 2021-22, climbing to 5,796 in 2024-25. Among the most striking changes is demand involving very young children: the number of children under six who are getting help more than doubled in a single year, from 502 in 2024 to 1,034 in 2025.

"The data demonstrates a sustained increase in demand for child and youth mental health services across eastern Ontario, with particularly significant growth among children under six years of age," said Josée Blackburn, director of Kids Come First.

At CHEO's emergency department, mental health-related visits were also higher in the first half of this year than during the same period last year, with 1,553 visits from January through June 2026, compared with 1,417 during the same months in 2025.

The local trend mirrors what Kids Help Phone is seeing nationally. The organization says overnight texting demand has jumped by nearly a quarter (24 per cent) so far compared to last year, with even steeper growth expected when school starts in September. In Ontario, overnight texting demand is up 27 per cent year-over-year. The largest group reaching out for support in Ontario is youth between 14 and 17, and the most common concerns include anxiety and stress, relationship problems, depression, isolation and thoughts of self-harm and suicide.

For some young people, texting offers privacy that calling cannot. Raissa Amany, an Orléans resident who now serves on Kids Help Phone's national youth council, remembers struggling with anxiety and depression as a high school student and turning to the service during the COVID-19 pandemic when traditional services were difficult to access, particularly at night and on long weekends.

"It was, for me, a little easier rather than me calling in the middle of the night," Amany said. "People would hear." She said texting also gives young people time to put difficult feelings into words without having to say them aloud. "Young people are still carrying a level of distress that really doesn't switch off at bedtime," she added.