Transforming Ontario’s Children’s Mental Health System

DESIGN.

When the Auditor General flagged systemic failures in Ontario’s community-based children’s mental health system in 2016, the government needed more than a patch. The entire model - how services were designed, funded, and delivered across the province - needed to change.

Chris was a senior member of the team that drove that transformation. Working across policy, legal, communications, and economic analysis, he helped redesign the funding model, develop new lead agency policy, and shepherd landmark legislative changes through the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017.

The result was a fundamentally restructured system - new legislation, a new funding model, and clearer accountability for children’s mental health services across Ontario. The team received the Ontario Public Service Amethyst Award for this work.