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Mental Health and Addictions - Developing a 10-year Strategic Plan

The people touched by mental health and addictions are our family members, friends, and colleagues. The impacts are significant; mental illnesses and addictions can cause people to lose their jobs, their friends, or their homes. Because mental illnesses and addictions are not well understood, they can also affect communities, creating stigma and fear. Untreated mental illness is costly for health care and related services, as well as for businesses and the economy as a result of lost opportunity and productivity.

What does this mean for our LHIN?
  • One in five Canadians - 280,000 people in our LHIN - are affected by mental illness at some time in their lives.
  • 70% of people with mental health issues - 196,000 people in our LHIN - have them before they are age 18.
  • Less than half of all children and youth in need of treatment get treatment. 98,000 children and youth in our LHIN do not get the treatment they need.
  • Between 10% and 20% of people - 140,000-280,000 in our LHIN - will have a substance use disorder in their lifetime.
  • 3% depend on alcohol and illicit drugs in a given year.  This year, in our LHIN, 42,000 people will depend on alcohol and illicit drugs.
  • 5% - 70,000 people in our LHIN - have the potential to become, or are already, problem gamblers.
Our Mission 
  • Every door is the right door for Ontarians with mental illnesses and addictions
  • All doors in the mental health and addictions system and the broader health system lead to integrated, accessible, person-directed services and supports.  The broader health system includes children and youth, education, social services, housing, senior’s services, settlement services, and justice.
  • Services focus on the hopes and needs of people with mental illness and addictions, and engage them in their own health and care.
Proposed Strategies 
  • Act Early - Identify mental health and addictions problems early and intervene appropriately.
  • Meet People on their Terms - Develop a range of evidence-based, person-directed services.
  • Transform the System - Provide access to a seamless system of comprehensive, effective, efficient, proactive and population specific services and supports.
  • Strengthen the Mental Health and Addictions Workforce - Ensure we have the right people with the right skills in the right places.
  • Stop Stigma - Bring mental health and addictions out from behind closed doors.
  • Create Healthy Communities - Fostering supportive communities is a shared responsibility that requires the commitment of all segments of society and cooperation of all government ministries.
  • Build Community Resilience - Protect people from mental illness and addictions.
The 10-Year Plan 

The Minister of Health and Long -Term Care, the Honorable David Caplan, has established an advisory group on mental health and addictions. The group’s work, in parallel to the all-party Select Committee on Mental Health and Addictions, will assist in the development of a 10-year strategic plan to improve the level of services and opportunities for prevention for persons living with mental health and addictions problems. 

The advisory group membership includes consumers, family members, health care providers and researchers from across Ontario.

On July 13-14 2009, the Minister held the "Open Minds, Healthy Minds"  Mental Health and Addictions Strategy summit in Toronto, which brought together many delegates including health experts, consumers and families. 

At the summit, the Minister released a discussion paper, Every Door is the Right Door, to provide a starting point for discussion on the province’s 10-year mental health and addictions strategy. The Minister invites delegates and all Ontarians to review the discussion paper and provide feedback. The Advisory Group on Mental Health and Addictions will take this feedback, along with comments from the summit and other smaller consultations and roundtables to be held across the province this fall, to formulate its final report. 

Locally, mental health and addictions agencies across the HNHB LHIN led a process of community engagement and consultation involving health care providers, consumers and family members of mental health and addictions services.

For more information about the Advisory Group and to provide feedback on the discussion paper, please click here.