Connecting Young People With the Right Care

The Help in Hand initiative is part of Dr. Aislin Mushquash's (pictured) broader research program focused on helping young people thrive in an increasingly digitally connected world.

Thunder Bay, Ont. – For youth in northwestern Ontario, timely access to mental health care is a significant challenge. To fill this service gap, researchers at Lakehead University are launching the Help in Hand initiative in partnership with community mental health agencies and School Mental Health Ontario. 

With a $2 million investment from Health Canada's Youth Mental Health Fund, the initiative expands access to youth mental health supports in schools across northwestern Ontario. Help in Hand will bring digital mental health tools directly into schools—where young people spend much of their time—and create stronger links to additional care when it is needed. 

Led by Dr. Aislin Mushquash, a clinical psychologist and Lakehead’s Research Chair in Youth Mental Health, the initiative is part of her broader research program focused on helping young people thrive in an increasingly digitally connected world. Designed to complement, not replace, existing mental health services, Help in Hand adds another layer of support to help young people connect with the right level of care based on their current needs.

“I’ve worked as a clinical psychologist in our community for 13 years and have seen how young people often face unique barriers to accessing support,” said Dr. Mushquash. “Help in Hand is about providing practical, evidence-based tools while strengthening links to the broader mental health system. Our hope is that this initiative will lead to a better understanding of the impact of digital spaces and technologies on youth mental health.”

Recognizing that educators are often the first point of contact when youth experience challenges, Help in Hand will provide school communities with specialized training and resources to navigate the evolving digital mental health landscape, find high-quality tools, and measure their impact. Participating students will have access to JoyPop, a research-backed app that helps youth strengthen their emotion regulation skills and improve overall well-being.

Dr. Mushquash and her research team are working closely with a network of community partners, including Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, Children’s Centre Thunder Bay, Thunder Bay Counselling Centre, School Mental Health Ontario, and McGill University’s Ludic Mind Studio, to improve the effectiveness, timeliness, and cultural appropriateness of integrated mental health care for youth and their support systems.

Help in Hand will directly benefit youth, families, and schools across the region, while the knowledge generated will help inform how education and healthcare systems make decisions about the integration of digital technologies nationwide.

Quotes 

“Community organizations, like Lakehead University, are key to strengthening youth mental health because they understand the needs and realities of young people in their communities, especially those facing the greatest barriers to care. Through Health Canada’s Youth Mental Health Fund, our government is helping young people access mental health care where they feel safe and supported. Supporting young Canadians today means building a Canada strong for generations to come.”

The Honourable Marjorie Michel
Minister of Health, Government of Canada

"When young people have access to the right supports at the right time, they are better able to thrive at school, at home, and in their communities. The Help in Hand initiative reflects the innovation and collaboration that Northwestern Ontario is known for, bringing together educators, researchers, and community organizations to improve access to mental health supports for youth. I'm proud to see partners across our region leading this important work."

The Honourable Patty Hajdu
Member of Parliament – Thunder Bay Superior North
Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor), Government of Canada

“The Help in Hand program demonstrates Lakehead University’s commitment to social responsibility in interactive online systems and the mobilization of research into real-world solutions that directly serve the needs of our community. By expanding mental health support within our local educational framework, Lakehead continues to lead in research that fosters thriving, resilient communities.”

Dr. Langis Roy
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Lakehead University

“The Help in Hand project is an important step forward in improving access to mental health supports for youth across Northwestern Ontario. By increasing digital mental health literacy, providing evidence-informed tools, and strengthening pathways to care, the project will help youth and families find support sooner and more easily. Dilico is proud to partner in this work and to help ensure that Indigenous youth and their caregivers have access to resources and services that support wellness, resilience, and positive mental health outcomes.”

John Dixon
Director of Substance Health and Special Projects, Dilico Anishinabek Family Care

“Helping young people thrive means ensuring they have access to evidence-informed mental health supports that reflect the realities of their lives today. The Help in Hand initiative brings together digital mental health literacy, practical supports, and strong partnerships with schools to help students, educators, and families build confidence and wellbeing. We are excited to partner on this important work and help bring it to school communities across Ontario.”

Dr. Kathy Short
Executive Director, School Mental Health Ontario

A Lakehead Barrie STEM Hub researcher, in partnership with the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH), is transforming how Simcoe County detects and responds to environmental health threats, starting with airborne allergens.

Dr. Thiago E. Alves de Oliveira, associate professor of computer science and assistant dean of the Faculty of Science and Environmental Studies, has been awarded $248,750 from the New Frontiers in Research Fund’s (NFRF) Exploration stream to create a real-time, autonomous allergen-detection system using machine learning.

A High-Tech Approach to Tracking Airborne Allergens

Dr. de Oliveira— along with Geography and Environmental Sustainability Professor Dr. Florin Pendea and Psychology Professor Dr. Sila Demir— will work closely with Barrie’s RVH to develop an AI-driven sensing network that can instantly and precisely detect, count, and classify pollen particles and determine their allergenic potential.

“Our network has the capacity to enhance quality of life, support public health responses, and strengthen community resilience against environmental and biological risks,” says Dr. de Oliveira.

Collection tapes will capture airborne pollen particles, often invisible to regular microscopes, which will be automatically analyzed by ‘super-resolution’ robotic microscopes.

The platform will also track environmental data including air pressure, temperature, humidity, and particulate matter.

“This will provide a complete, real-time picture of what types of pollen are in the air we breathe,” explains Dr. de Oliveira.

Putting Real-Time Data into Allergy Sufferers’ Hands

Getting information to people will be the most important part.

The interdisciplinary research team will develop an AI-driven app to take the “raw data” and translate it into clear, actionable messages for users.

Users can log their allergy symptoms and will receive personalized health alerts when allergen exposure is high.

This will help them make informed decisions about their health and stop an allergy attack before it happens.

As a partner on the project, RVH is eager to see this next-gen health innovation deliver tangible benefits for the region.

“Environmental conditions can have a real impact on health, particularly for people living with allergies, asthma, respiratory disease, or other chronic conditions,” says Dr. Jesse McLean, RVH director, research and innovation and grant co-applicant.

“This exciting project will help us explore how real-time data can support better day-to-day decisions for individuals, while helping healthcare providers in our region anticipate and respond to emerging community health needs.”

While the project’s initial focus is on allergy management, the network will provide a foundation to monitor a wide range of environmental health risks, including airborne pathogens and harmful pollutants.

“By combining computer science, environmental science, healthcare, and psychology in ways that have not been tried before, this cross-disciplinary project will help individuals better manage their health through technology,” says Dr. Langis Roy, Lakehead vice-president, research and innovation.

“This is exactly the ‘out of the box’ thinking the NFRF program is designed for and that will help Lakehead develop game-changing solutions for health and well-being across the regions we serve.”

The Crossfade Program Turns High School Students into Filmmakers

"Film is about illusion and a filmmaker is a kind of magician," says Media, Film and Communications Assistant Professor, Neven Lochhead.

The cinematic world is one that Dr. Lochhead knows intimately.

He's an accomplished media artist and filmmaker who joined Lakehead in September 2025 to teach students in the Media, Film and Communications (MFAC) program on the Orillia campus.

"Mentoring emerging filmmakers is a thrilling adventure as an educator," he says. "I'm surprised every time I assign my students a project."

Dr. Lochhead is an artist-filmmaker, curator, and educator. He says he fell in love with filmmaking because it's so elastic and capacious. "I can fit music, text, art and architecture into film and have things collide in unexpected ways," he says. "I also love narrative storytelling, of course, especially French New Wave cinema."

Recently, Dr. Lochhead has been extending the magic of film beyond the university campus.

Since winter 2026, he has been teaching a series of workshops—called Crossfade—that introduce high school students to sound design, filmmaking, and interactive storytelling.

"Crossfade is a term used in radio broadcasting," he explains. "It refers to the moment of overlap between songs when you bring down one song and bring up another. In film, it signifies the transition between two scenes or two time periods."

The program is offered through Lakehead's Office of Community Engagement and Lifelong Learning (CELL) with support from the City of Orillia.

Crossfade is also part of the Ontario Ministry of Education's SHSM program and helps fulfil the requirements of the Arts & Culture Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM). SHSM specializations provide young people with experience in different economic sectors and are recognized on their high school diplomas and transcripts.

High school students who completed Crossfade in winter 2026 had their productions displayed alongside the works of Lakehead MFAC students in the annual Media Arts Showcase (above), which was held at the Orillia Museum of Art and History." Jeff Cole, a wonderful teacher at the Patrick Fogarty High School, approached me about offering a film workshop for his media students, which led to the birth of Crossfade," Dr. Lochhead says. "I'm also grateful to CELL Director Nicky Locker for her work getting Crossfade designated as a Specialist High Skills Major."

"Demystifying spaces of higher education and giving students a taste of Lakehead life are two other important goals of Crossfade," Dr. Lochhead says. "The workshops take place on the Lakehead Orillia campus and students eat lunch together in the university cafeteria."

There's yet another advantage for Crossfade participants who may later apply to Lakehead's MFAC program. They can accelerate their admission route to MFAC by submitting their Crossfade projects for consideration instead of a standard filmwork portfolio.

Pick a Card, Any Card

Dr. Lochhead takes an inventive approach to teaching filmmaking.

"I listen to students, challenge them, and encourage them to take risks with their ideas," he says.

After discussing filmmaking principles and techniques, Dr. Lochhead pulls out a deck of custom-made cards.

"In collaboration with an educator at the Edinburgh College of Art, Neil Mulholland, I have been exploring how the randomness of decks of cards can be used to jumpstart the creative process," he says.

Each deck is tailored to different aspects of filmmaking to activate playful workshop environments.

In Dr. Lochhead's cinematography workshops, for example, students drew from his Ciné-Magic Card Deck, which has cards featuring camera shots, angles, moods, and motivations.

Dr. Lochhead's decks of cards lead to unexpected juxtapositions. "The Jootsy! deck is my favourite because it's more speculative. It stands for Jump Out of The System, and it prompts students to develop a parallel-narrative map and connect multiple storylines into a playful, shared, and interactive project."

"A deck functions like a recipe book. Students have to figure out what they can make by combining disparate ingredients. By bringing chance and rules into filmmaking, it becomes a game of problem-solving."

After students deal and choose their cards, they work together in small teams.

"The workshops become a flurry of collaboration where students will produce short works anywhere between 30 seconds to 4 minutes in length," Dr. Lochhead says.

This is crucial because every film and media production requires a troupe of people working together, making the ability to collaborate an essential skill in the field.

"The projects that emerge from the workshop are always full of energy, and there are lots of laughs," he adds. "One group used a birdhouse to film a story about an alien abduction."

From Babbling Brooks to Screeching Traffic

The most recent Crossfade workshops immersed students in the medium of sound art during an intensive three-day program called Sonic Imagination.

"The students went out and collected sounds and then assembled them into audio collages that evoke specific moods and feelings," Dr. Lochhead says.

Any sound imaginable can be incorporated into sound art, whether it's a barking dog or the wind in the trees. Unlike music, it isn't driven by harmonic structures or musical scales, offering sound artists great freedom. Above, a student records sounds.

"Audio collages are playful and they encourage students to be open and curious about the world around them, where music can be found anywhere," he says.

Dr. Lochhead hopes to run a Crossfade series focused on interactive storytelling this fall, giving more Simcoe County students the opportunity to become the next Ken Burns or Sofia Coppola, or to break the mould entirely as they pursue their own unique vision.

Check out this piece of sound art created by Crossfade students called Cosmic Storm.

Click here for information about Crossfade and upcoming workshops.

Lakehead University has once again been recognized among the world’s leading universities for sustainability and global impact, maintaining its status as the top-ranked university in North America with fewer than 10,000 students, in the 2026 Times Higher Education Sustainability Impact Ratings.

For the seventh consecutive year, Lakehead remains among the top 10 percent of universities worldwide for societal impact, ranking in the 101-200 category among 1,603 participating institutions from 116 countries. 

"Our faculty, students and staff are committed to research, education, and community partnerships that support the global sustainability agenda, including poverty, climate change, access to clean water, and Indigenous reconciliation," said President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Gillian Siddall. "The Sustainability Impact Ratings shine a light on the work happening in our classrooms, campus labs, and through community-engaged research that is changing lives and contributing to the development of sustainable communities and societies, locally, nationally, and globally." 

The Times Higher Education Sustainability Impact Ratings evaluate universities based on their contributions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (or SDG’s) through research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching. The rankings measure how universities are helping to address global challenges from poverty and food security to health equity, climate action, and sustainable development. Lakehead's performance reflects key operational initiatives, curriculum development and research projects that address complex societal challenges.

"This recognition reflects the strength of an education that connects learning with real-world impact," said Dr. Gillian Balfour, Provost and Vice-President, Academic. "Through our Strategic and Academic Plans, Lakehead is embedding sustainability across teaching, research and community partnerships, preparing graduates who are ready to address today's most pressing social, environmental and economic challenges." 

Lakehead ranked among the top 100 universities in the world for SDG 1: No Poverty. The rankings also placed Lakehead among the top 200 universities in the world and top 10 in Canada for SDG 2: Zero Hunger; SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being; SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation; SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities; SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; SDG 13: Climate Action; SDG 14: Life Below Water; SDG 15: Life on Land; and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. 

Quick facts:

• Lakehead is ranked 101-200th overall among 1,603 universities from over 116 countries in the Times Higher Education 2026 Sustainability Impact Rankings.

• For the seventh year in a row, Lakehead remains in the top 10% of global universities for social impact.

• Lakehead is one of 20 participating Canadian universities, and the top ranked Canadian primarily undergraduate university.

• Lakehead is the top ranked university in Canada with under 10,000 students.

• Lakehead is the top ranked university in North America with under 10,000 students.

• Lakehead is ranked 69th in the world and 5th in Canada in SDG 1: No Poverty, for its work to address poverty reduction.

• Lakehead is ranked in the top 200 universities in the world for 10 of the 17 SDGs.

To view Lakehead's full results, visit the University’s Times Higher Education profile at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/lakehead-university.