One of the things we do at Kids Help Phone is ensure that there is a front door that every young person in Canada can get through to talk to an adult about what's bothering them, and we provide a single counselling session to that young person. For many young people, that's enough: they need somebody to listen to, reduce their distress, come up with a plan, maybe practise that plan. That plan might be that they're going to connect with a family member or a teacher or a friend and they need to know there is hope. That's what we evaluate. Are we making that difference? For many young people, that's not enough, particularly as you were mentioning, with increasing rates of anxiety, but also depression and other mental illnesses. Those young people often need more.
Kids Help Phone has the largest database in Canada that we collect and maintain of every community-based service where young people can get mental health supports, but also LGBTQ support groups, food banks. Any service that's available to young people, we collect and maintain. We make referrals to young people into systems, so they can receive the CBT treatment or other treatments.
The reality is that even when we're able to make a referral, there are tremendous wait-lists for services, so Kids Help Phone is the place that those young people—we refer them to a community mental health agency and we say while they're waiting for treatment, continue to call or chat with us. Then when they get into treatment, we know that those young people are often experiencing significant distress when every other service in Canada is closed. Even if they're in treatment, if they're experiencing anxiety suddenly at two in the morning, they can come back to Kids Help Phone.
Finally, the hope with treatment is that it ends. You go through a significant amount of treatment, whatever your practitioner decides you need, and then you are done, but whether it's two weeks or two months or two years later, young people are going to experience some kind of challenge, because we all face challenges. If they're triggered and that anxiety comes back, come back to Kids Help Phone. Again, maybe we can help you in that one session or we can connect you to a service that will meet your needs.