Crisis & After-Hours Support
We are not a 24-hour crisis service. Our office is open 9 to 5:30, Monday to Friday, though our phone line is answered 24 hours a day, so a call outside those hours still reaches someone and your message comes to us. For help that cannot wait, the crisis numbers on this page are staffed around the clock.
If you are in immediate danger, stop reading and call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department.
If You Need Help Immediately
These are free, confidential, and available at any hour.
Suicide Crisis Helpline
Call or text, any time, anywhere in Canada. Free and confidential, available in English and French.
For anyone thinking about suicide, or worried about someone who is.
Emergency Services
If you or someone else is in immediate physical danger, or has taken an overdose, or has been seriously harmed.
You can ask for a crisis-trained response.
Kids Help Phone
Or text CONNECT to 686868.
For children and young people up to age 29. Available any time, and confidential.
Assaulted Women’s Helpline
Any time, across Ontario, in many languages.
For anyone experiencing abuse or violence.
We Are Not a Crisis Line, But We Are Trained for This
The numbers above exist because someone needs to be reachable at three in the morning, and that is not us. What we are is a clinical team trained in crisis assessment and management, and a crisis is very much something we treat rather than something we refer elsewhere.
Our Clinicians Are Trained in Crisis Work
Suicide risk assessment and safety planning are part of the core training of the regulated professions on our team, and several of our clinicians hold additional certification in crisis intervention and critical incident stress management.
That means you can tell us the worst of it. You will not be met with alarm, and you will not be handed a phone number and shown the door.
A Crisis Is a Reason to Call, Not a Reason to Wait
People frequently decide not to ring because they think their situation is not serious enough for an appointment, or too serious for one. Neither is true.
If you are in danger right now, use 9-8-8 or 911, because immediacy matters more than continuity. For everything short of that, call us.
What Happens When You Tell Us
We take it seriously and we take it calmly. Your clinician will talk through what is happening, assess how at risk you are, and build a safety plan with you rather than for you, covering what you will do, who you will contact, and what needs to be made safer at home.
Where you need medication or a medical review, we can bring in our nurse practitioners and psychiatrists. Where the situation calls for hospital care, we will say so plainly and help you get there.
After a Crisis Passes
The days after are the ones that matter, and they are the ones most often left empty. We bring appointments forward, increase frequency for a period, and involve family where you want that.
If you were in hospital, we can begin while you are still there. Our counselling team visits clients at the bedside.
Our Phone Line Is Answered Around the Clock
Our office hours are 9 to 5:30, Monday to Friday, with evenings and weekends by appointment, but the line is answered 24 hours a day. A call at any hour reaches a person, and your message comes to us.
It is not a crisis service and nobody clinical is standing by overnight, so please do not wait on a callback if you are unsafe. Use 9-8-8 or 911 first, then tell us.
Telling Us Afterwards Changes Your Care
If something has happened, we would always rather know. It changes how we assess you, what treatment we recommend, and how closely we follow up.
It also matters for your claim. A crisis that nobody documents is a crisis that did not officially happen, which affects both the treatment that can be funded and the record of how severely you have been affected.
Local Crisis Lines
Regional crisis services can often send a mobile team to you, which a national line cannot.
Niagara & Hamilton
- Niagara Region Crisis Outreach: 1-866-550-5205
- COAST Hamilton: 905-972-8338
- St. Joseph’s Hamilton Crisis: 905-522-1155
- Niagara Health emergency departments: St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland, Fort Erie, Port Colborne
Halton, Peel & Toronto
- COAST Halton: 1-877-825-9011
- Peel Crisis Support: 905-278-9036
- Toronto Distress Centres: 416-408-4357
- Gerstein Crisis Centre, Toronto: 416-929-5200
- Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital: emergency department
Waterloo, Guelph & Muskoka
- Here 24/7, Waterloo Region: 1-844-437-3247
- Here 24/7 covers Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge
- Guelph-Wellington Crisis: 1-844-437-3247
- Muskoka Crisis Response: 1-888-893-8333
- ConnexOntario: 1-866-531-2600 for services anywhere in Ontario
Numbers change from time to time. If one does not connect, call 9-8-8 or 911, or go to your nearest emergency department.
Calling a Crisis Line
Not knowing what happens when you call stops many people from calling at all.