When a young person is experiencing a mental health crisis, what happens in the first few minutes matters. Who shows up, how they respond, and whether the young person feels safe enough to accept help.

That’s the thinking behind the Youth-focused Mobile Crisis Response Team (YCRT), an initiative launched by the Ottawa Police Service (OPS), YSB, CHEO, and the Kids Come First Health Team. It’s a coordinated, trauma-informed response built around a simple idea: young people in crisis deserve the right support, from the right people, at the right time and in the least intrusive way possible.

The YCRT pairs a specialized Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officer from the OPS Mental Health Crisis Unit with a member of YSB’s Mobile Crisis Response team. Together, they respond to youth experiencing mental health crises across Ottawa, combining public safety expertise with youth mental health and social service supports in a single coordinated response, rather than two separate systems working in parallel.

The team operates Monday to Thursday, from 10 a.m to 8 p.m.

Youth crisis workers lead the response, connecting young people and their families to appropriate mental health, health, social, and community services. Police officers are there to provide public safety expertise when safety concerns or elevated risks are present, but the goal throughout is to meet young people where they are, in familiar environments, whenever it’s safe to do so.

As YSB CEO Nina Gorka explained, “The YCRT takes a vital, trauma-informed approach to youth mental health. When a young person is in crisis, having a YSB youth worker as part of the team means we can provide de-escalation and safety planning on the spot.”

By drawing on a broader network of community resources, including 1Call1Click.ca, the YCRT is designed to quickly connect youth and families with coordinated support to address the immediate crisis, improve continuity of care afterward, and reduce pressure on emergency departments.

The initiative also builds on specialized training introduced in April 2026, aimed at helping CIT officers better support neurodiverse, racialized, and Indigenous youth.

The YCRT reflects something we believe strongly at YSB: that the systems built to support young people work best when they work together. Police, healthcare, and youth services each bring something different to a moment of crisis, and when those pieces are coordinated instead of siloed, young people get better outcomes and families get clearer paths forward.

If you or a young person you know is in crisis, support is available:

To learn more about YSB’s full range of services, visit ysb.ca/services.

Read the full announcement from the Ottawa Police Service here.