Kids Help Phone Sets a New Standard of Care for Youth Mental Health at Elevate 2025
TORONTO, Oct. 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One year after introducing acceleratorKHP on the Elevate stage as a bold catalyst for youth mental health innovation in Canada, Kids Help Phone (KHP) returned to announce a transformative shift in mental health support that seamlessly integrates human connection with the power of generative AI, setting a new benchmark for care in the digital age.
Youth in Canada are facing a mental health crisis. Since 2020, KHP has interacted with young people more than 22 million times. Over the past decade, the number of young people reporting good mental health has steadily declined. Today, suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people in Canada.
“Technology continues to redefine how young people relate to their world,” says Justin Scaini, Group Head and Executive Vice President, Strategy, Innovation and Transformation. “Generative AI is transforming how youth seek information, communicate, and engage. Mental health is one of the top reasons young people turn to GenAI.”
For over 36 years, KHP has been a trusted leader in youth mental health in Canada. No one understands the evolving needs of young people across the country quite like KHP, because the organization interacts with youth more than 4 million times annually.
To fulfill its promise of offering new pathways to help that are authentic and intuitive in young people’s worlds, KHP is building a new standard of care. Through acceleratorKHP, the organization is revolutionizing how youth mental health supports are designed and delivered—leveraging one of a kind coast to coast-to-coast clinical infrastructure, real-time de-identified and anonymized data, research, AI, and partnerships to ensure youth can access help whenever and wherever they need it most.
Developed through acceleratorKHP, KHP’s GenAI tool will offer a personalized experience built with and for young people—providing choice, flexibility, safety, and credibility.
At the heart of this innovation is KHP’s extraordinary data resource: over 50 million data points that have been aggregated and anonymized from conversations with youth. Rather than offering one-size-fits-all support, acceleratorKHP is unlocking new possibilities for personalization, accessibility, and relevance. The GenAI tool is being co-created with youth and is actively in prototyping—because that’s the only way to truly understand and meet their needs. By putting youth at the center and prioritizing safety from the start, KHP is building a tool that truly understands and protects those it’s meant to serve.
Blending human connection with KHP’s GenAI product in development, young people will experience a new standard of support—one that understands their unique words, feels intuitive from the beginning, and evolves with their needs.
The GenAI tool will be able to appropriately assess risk levels, whether it’s a minor concern, suicidal ideation, or suicidal action and initiate the right steps to keep the young person safe. A trained KHP clinical professional will always be available to respond, 24/7.
“KHP is committed to blending technology with empathy, privacy and safety to ensure support meets the pace of innovation and matches the needs of young people across the country,” says Alisa Simon, Group Head and Executive Vice President, e-Mental Health Transformation and Clinical Services. “This tool is not about AI replacing humans as KHP intimately understands the importance of youth being able to connect with a counsellor or trained responder 24/7—it’s about enhancing and strengthening support.”
KHP’s work is possible because its models are trained on KHP’s one-of-a-kind, diverse data set, integrated with clinical frameworks and quality assurance processes that have made the organization a trusted space for youth for over three decades.
While the GenAI tool is still in early development, the vision is clear: to connect young people to the support they need, in the moments they need it most, and in ways that reflect the realities of their world today. Because to young people, help means everything.
Fast Facts
- 75% of service users tell KHP something they’ve never told anyone before
- Since the start of 2020, KHP has had more than 22 million interactions with service users across Canada
- Last year, 49 per cent of youth said that if they had not reached out to KHP, they would have ignored the issue or hoped it went away, which is a significant barrier to good mental health
To get involved with acceleratorKHP and follow KHP’s innovation journey, visit www.acceleratorkhp.ca
About Kids Help Phone
Kids Help Phone (KHP) is Canada’s first and only 24/7 e-mental health solution and a global leader in youth mental health innovation. For 36 years, KHP has been the space for any feeling or issue, no matter how big or small, empowering young people across Canada to feel out loud with free, confidential, multilingual support. With innovation in our DNA, KHP continually evolves by blending technology with the empathy of our clinical experts to better serve youth. KHP recently launched acceleratorKHP to drive scalable solutions for complex mental health issues, amplifying youth voices and fostering global partnerships. KHP gratefully relies on the generosity of donors, volunteers, stakeholder partners, corporate partners and governments to fuel and fund our programs. Discover more at kidshelpphone.ca.
For more information, please contact media@kidshelpphone.ca
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