The Ben Mulroney Show - Youth mental health numbers rising -- help in the GTA is closer than you think

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Guest: Andrew Obee / LUMENOUS CEO   About Lumenus: The organization offers community-based supports to help children, youth, and families navigate mental health and developmental services in Toronto. If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ. AI for tax experts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And if you know a kid, if you have a kid, then you feel for that kid. You know, my kids were part of that cohort that lost so much in-person time during the pandemic. They lost so much of their childhood. They lost that connection to friends and the outdoors and community and school and all the little things,

the myriad millions of things, the benefits that come from being together in groups and going on field trips and having lunch outside and playing together and getting up on your friends and playing a prank. None of that happened. And what happened also? An over-reliance on social media, right? So that's, not only did they get, they got it on both ends. And I don't know what that does to every kid. I know what it's done to my kids and I want, and I'm working very hard to make sure that, you know, that we, we get them back on the pathway that they should have been on. But not every, not every kid is able to do that for a million different reasons.

And consequently, there's an entire generation of kids that has, has had pressure on them that has led in a lot of cases to, mental health pressures on them. And we need to get them the help they need. We need to get them the help we need. And so I'm happy to have in studio, Andrew Obie, he's the CEO of Luminous. And before we get into it, first of all, thank you for showing up and being here in person. Oh, it's my pleasure, Ben. I appreciate you having me on. So tell me what problem Luminous seeks to solve. Look, Luminous is one of the largest community services agencies across the city of Toronto. So we support more than 11,000 clients a year who are dealing with a wide variety of issues in their life. Those could be mental health issues, as you've spoken about. They could also be

developmental challenges, autism, and other things like that. So, you know, our goal is to provide a bunch of wraparound services that help our clients tackle and end up in their lives with a better outcome than they might otherwise have had. And that's why I love doing stories like this because a lot of people don't know what they don't know. And a lot of people are being introduced to Luminous now. And they may be, you know, a parent may be listening at home or on their way home or picking up their kid and saying, you know what, I just, I haven't been able to get my, I know my kid

need something and I don't know what they need. And so Luminous could be a pathway to that help. Well, Ben, I'll tell you, I often say this. One of the things that breaks my heart the most is when there are folks who I know there are services out there for them or a member of their family. And they aren't getting those services, not because they aren't available, but because they just, they don't know. It's, it's not something that you go to school to learn. There's no course. There's no, no user manual for this kind of thing when you find yourself in that situation needing those kinds of supports.

But Andrew, we, we hear constantly that, you know, our health care system is in crisis and that includes the mental health care system and that we don't have the resources to help everybody that needs it. You know, one of the things about, I remember I worked, I worked with UNICEF, right, when we're building wells in Malawi. And the thing about building a well, so they build a school, right, and they have a well with fresh water. The problem with that is once you build the well, word gets out that there's a well in that town and everybody starts sending their kids to that town to go to school here. We have to walk five miles. Once you identify a solution to a problem, it's going to attract more people.

And we're living in a time where we're destigmatizing mental health, which means we're going to be diagnosing it more, right? And so the assumption was that our mental health care system has been stretched beyond its capacity. And you're saying that's not necessarily the case,

at least as it results for kids. Yeah, so I think all that you just said is 100% true, that there is growing need, that the complexity of the need is increasing over time. The growing need is in part because it's less taboo than perhaps it was before. We understand it more, right? Exactly.

And because we're more able to diagnose when these situations are there. So all those things lead to the growing demand. Like a kid who was once quirky is now on the spectrum. Right, right. Yeah. You know, and so that is certainly it. And it is certainly true that many parts of the system are constrained and there are wait lists. And, you know, it's not the sort of care that you can get tomorrow or today if you need it today.

But it's also true that there are some services that aren't well known, that are available for families who are either in urgent need for something quite quickly or who are just trying to figure out whether what they're seeing with their young person in their life is actually an issue or not. or, you know, and they need to identify whether they need to figure out a long-term, you know, a plan for care. Yeah. Or whether maybe they just need to get something off their chest and those sorts of things. So there are a couple of services available across the city that are available. There's one that we run two centers, the two of the six centers that run across the city. We call them what's up walk-in centers. And so they're open six days a week for, you know, some number of hours.

one of them's kind of in the west end of the city up near the airport on Ronson. The other's up, a finch between Dufferin and Kiel. And so you can literally no appointment necessary, walk into one of those centers when they're there and have a conversation with a clinician who can help, you know, figure what's going on in your world and give you some guidance as to what the right next steps are to do those. And so what else can they help you with in those walking clinics? So they'll deliver what's called a brief counseling session. So they're a clinician. They're typically a counselor, perhaps a psychotherapist, and they're going to meet with the young person,

often including their family, if that makes sense. And they're going to walk them through the clinical process. I'm not a clinician myself. I'm hesitant to talk too much about the specifics, but they're going to go through the process of identifying what seems to be going on here. and what might be the right. So they're the touch point.

They are. Are these clinics being used to their max capacity right now? No, they aren't. There's absolutely capacity in these walk-in centers for sure. There's also some virtual options through a province-wide service called One Stop Talk, Parlamano, in French. And those are available for teens, kind of up to 18, but just to do a virtual session. and also with some capacity available to be able to help folks.

Why are, why am I just learning about this now? And by extension, why is so much of the audience of the show learning about this now? It's a great question. You know, one of the challenges is getting to know or getting the information out there about organizations like Luminous, and we are far from the only one in the city that have the ability to provide this kind of help. So it's definitely, it's one of the reasons that I was thrilled to have the opportunity to come and talk to you. I want more people to know about this because it's one thing if you're on a wait list. It's another thing if you're not getting help because you just don't know what else.

I guarantee you that there are parents out there who don't even, haven't even tried getting their kids in to see a doctor because they're like, I'm not going to get them in. There's no point. I'm too busy and it's a fool's errand and all the news I ever hear. and we, I mean, we report on the news that is out there that, you know, the wait lists are long and nobody has a family doctor and you're not going to get in so you can't diagnose. So I'm just going to do my best at home. And to hear this is probably going to open their eyes. Tell me something. These clinicians, are they, like, if they, if something's really clear to them in, are they diagnosing someone in these moments?

Yeah, they're conducting assessments for sure. Can they prescribe things? So very few of them. But if a clinician knew. They can help lead to a path, a care plan for the young person. And, you know, our organization, because of the breadth of services that we offer, is well suited to help sort of, we call it navigate into the right areas and the right services. So to connect them through these pathways.

It feels to me that, I mean, a lot of parents out there would just be so happy to hear that this even exists because to be able to walk into a walking clinic and have a clinician, speak with their son or daughter, and listen to them and with an eye on identifying if there is a problem and if there is a problem, what that problem is and then offering a pathway to solution, I can guarantee you that there were a parents with a breakdown and cry at the idea that that exists and it's readily available today. Interesting data point, I think for you, Ben, you were talking earlier about the impact on your own children of having lived through the pandemic days and so on, we actually saw a dramatic drop off in the use of these specific services through that pandemic period.

So whether it was a function of sort of the shifting expectations or some of the apprehension about being, you know, in person and those sorts of things that have led to that. And we've not seen it rebound. It's rebounded a bit, but not as much. We're going to take a break. Don't go anywhere. Andrew Obie, the CEO of Luminous, is going to stick around. We're going to continue our conversation about mental health services.

says for kids. I got a lot of questions for you, sir. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back on the Ben Mulroney show. This is the Ben Mulroney show. And if you know anything about me, you know that I'm a dad and I want to do right by my kids. And I think every good parent wants to do right by their kids.

And they were dealt a really bad hand during the pandemic. That's not the only reason that a child would need mental health services. But I think a lot of them today need it because of the issues that came from that. But there's any number of reasons why a child might need. to avail themselves of mental health services. And the conventional wisdom for a lot of people, if you're listening right now, you probably thought it's too hard to get them in. It's too hard to find.

Even if I could identify that my kid had an issue that needed help, I wouldn't know where to go. Enter the CEO of Luminous, Andrew Obie, who's been with us, our guest for a few minutes now. And that this could be the pathway for you as a parent to get a guy. the help for your child that they need. Thank you so much for sticking around. Yeah, I'm happy to hang out. What are some of the stories that you've heard from the clinicians

and from the experience of the people who are helping parents with their kids? Like I said, I'm guessing parents must be relieved when they can so easily just walk into one-year walk-in clinics and get the help that they need or the beginning of the health they need. Well, you know, regardless of whether they end up coming to know luminous through one of the walking, in services or any of the other services that we deliver. The impact we have on family's lives is quite remark. I literally earlier today had an email from one of the family members who sits on a family advisory committee for us.

We try and make sure that we integrate the views of them into everything we do, everything from our strategic planning to the way that we roll out services, et cetera. And she sent me this lovely note, just saying, I cannot tell you the impact on our lives, like her entire family's lives as a result of the day that they came to meet the organization. So when you can find a, you know, a path to help for a kid who's suffering. I don't have kids. I know you've got your, your kid's been. But I can't imagine the negative impact on you, watching something like that going on

and not knowing what to do and how to help and how to protect and those sorts of things. So the impact on families can be just absolutely. life-changing. And look, the numbers are stark. Students with mental health problems are rising sharply worldwide with nearly two-thirds of first-year undergraduates, reporting symptoms of at least one mental illness, more than half experiencing symptoms in the past year. And despite the growing need, only 28% of students who would benefit from mental health support access it globally, which is far lower rates in low and middle-income countries and persistent inequities, or racialized and disadvantaged groups.

Let's talk about that for a moment. That's important because your walk-in clinics, have you put them in parts of town that can mitigate what I just referenced there? Yeah. So there are clinics like this across the city. We run two of them. Yeah. And the two that we run, one of them is up, Jane Finch Corridor, you know, quite culturally

diverse area for sure. And the other is in North Atobica. Okay. It's actually in the Poreenius writing. It's, you know, the Ronson Street, just Martin Grove in the 401, you know, basically area. So, again, very culturally diverse. Accessibility is a big thing, as is cultural sensitivity. And again, not just for these walk-in clinics, but the way that we deliver services, you know, in general,

there are differences in the way different cultures deal with mental health issues. And so one of the things we find is the need for the ability to outreach, directly into those communities to get them comfortable with the fact that you're there to help needs to be tweaked based on who it is you're dealing with for sure. Are we living in a time where, listen, I think the more we talk about problems, the better and you can't solve a problem unless you talk about it. But there is such a thing as over-correcting, not to suggest that we've solved the problem and now we've over-corrected. But, you know, it feels to me, I had a conversation on my show last few days ago with a woman by the name

Tanya Cazal, CEO and director of a group that deals with family estrangement. You know, people who don't talk to their kids anymore, people who don't talk to their parents anymore because of some issue in the past. And I asked her, do we use the word trauma inappropriately sometimes? and she said, absolutely we do. What used to be considered, just something you went through as a kid is now something that people will diagnose in themselves as trauma. And it is triggering.

And it makes that reconciliation harder because what you went through was tough and it sucked, but it kind of made you the person you are today. At least that's what my parents used to tell me about any time I complained about anything. My mom would also remind me how bad her life was in communist Yugoslavia. And my dad would remind me about growing up

in a tiny little house with seven people on the north shore of Quebec when his dad was an electrician for the North Shore of Paper Company. So that was the paradigm I lived through made sense for me. I think if I were of this generation, a lot of that stuff that was just an issue,

it was a thing, it was not a particularly happy thing, I would be calling it traumatic. And I wonder if that is something that needs to be addressed. So I would absolutely agree that the potential for that to be the case is very real. And I think all of us can see how that is going to be the case for some folks. I think there's a danger in leading too far into that because then some people will default to, well, there is nothing there. You should just suck it up and get on with it. because all the things you just said.

When I was young, I had to walk to school uphill both ways. Yeah. In the snow. You know, the old daddage, right? So my reaction to that is, is yes. But the real core issue is a decline in resiliency in kids. And it goes back to the things that you talked about. You know, they don't go and climb a tree.

They don't go and, you know, explore by themselves. They don't take risks anymore. They're overly involved in. social media. And that's also our fault, right? We don't want to disappoint our kids. So when they play soccer, everybody gets a medal. And, you know, we, we don't give Fs anymore because we don't want them to feel like

they failed, even though they failed. Yeah. Right. And so, so there's this lack of, and now we're getting to a point where, because I always said at some point, the world's going to smack these people in the face. They're going to get older and they're going to try to enter the job market. they're not going to understand why they didn't get the job. But now we're actually living in the world

where we're trying to extend that bubble wrapping into the real world, so to speak. And I think that's a big problem. I think the solution, though, is not the just deal with it approach. It's early intervention. Yeah. Right. We know from the research that the earlier you can get intercessions in place for kids, you know, even as infants.

Yeah. that can help build good positive, you know, healthy attachments to their parents, good relationships, you know, build their resilience, take risks. When was the last time you saw a kid with a cast on their arm? Oh, yeah. Well, my son, oh, my God, my son, he broke his femur skiing. It was awful. But it doesn't happen.

No, but they had to put a metal rod right in down the femur. And I said, are they going to give him a cast? He's like, no, the cast is the metal rod. The titanium rod. He dealt with pain. That kid dealt with a lot of pain. And he also dealt with the fact that he was in so much pain, he couldn't sit up.

And then when he could sit up, he was in so much pain, he couldn't go to school. And so he missed almost a full semester of school. Trying to get him to realize, like, you're in a hole here, and you got to get yourself out of it, was, it was really,

I was really impressed to watch because now he's thriving. Broad life experiences where they have the opportunity to try, fail, you know, in no way advocating for, you know, doing a way with preventing hazards. Like, let's not suggest that kids shouldn't wear helmets when they're riding their bike way. Of course. They should absolutely do that. But they should also be able to climb a tree

and do that. If we could build that resilience and they can build those coping mechanisms, then the mental health can be dealt with more easily and the sooner the better. Andrew Obie, if people have been listening and say, I got to get in touch with Luminous, how can they do so. Well, you can just come to our website, L-U-M-E-N-U-S dot-C-A. L-U-M-E-N-U-S dot-C-A. Fantastic. I want to thank you so much for joining us. I have no doubt that there are parents who wrote that down and they will be, the traffic on the website is going to increase. And I do hope the traffic in the walking clinics does so as well. And congratulations. Thanks for all your hard work. A pleasure. Thanks for having me, Ben.

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