Youth Wellness Hub offering health, substance use support in Cambridge
Posted Nov 4, 2025 07:01:34 AM.
Last Updated Nov 4, 2025 11:10:44 AM.
A new wellness hub opened its doors in the city of Cambridge and is looking to provide substance use support, mental health services, primary care, and more to youth across the city.
The Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario Cambridge (YWHO Cambridge) is located within the Langs Community Health Centre, installed as part of a province-wide initiative to provide better care and support to the youths who need it across Ontario.
It says it will offer a “safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment where youth can access a wide range of supports.”
“The launch of YWHO Cambridge is a milestone for our community,” said Debbie Hollahan, CEO of Langs. “We are proud to lead this initiative and expand access to essential services that support the health and well-being of youth in Cambridge.”
The new hub in Cambridge is one of 10 new locations being set up through the Ontario government, part of the 32 total located across the province. It was first announced back in January, when the provincial government set aside funding for those 10 additional wellness hubs.
“The new Youth Wellness Hub in Cambridge is a significant milestone for young people and families in this community,” said Vijay Thanigasalam, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. “It will provide a safe and welcoming space where youth can access care, build connections and receive the support they need close to home.”
One way the hub said it’s working to help out those impacted youth, without creating longer-term dependencies, is by operating under a particular style when it comes to how those services are being offered.
“The Youth Wellness Hub specifically offers brief intervention services, meant to meet the acute needs of youth,” said Dave Cooke, Director of Community Services with YWHO Cambridge. “It’s not ongoing long-term counselling, but four to six sessions where we help build coping skills, resiliency, and goal-setting. What we find is that we have great success when kids come in with a singular issue. We can work with them on it, send them back out.”
He added that the hub is able to see an increased number of youth visiting and benefiting from the services being offered, thanks to the brief intervention services model.
According to Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett, the addition of the wellness hub is one that fills a hole in the city. She said that as more institutions and organizations struggle through the current times, it has ripple effects on what’s being done for the city’s youth.
She said the needs being met by Cambridge’s new youth wellness hub are ones that are needed more than ever.
“With people so busy today, they recognize way too late that there’s something wrong within their own child,” said Liggett. “I think that the start of this here is where we’re going to pick up where that’s gone away, where that’s disappeared in modern society.”
While she acknowledged the work being done by the Ontario government to push projects like this through, she added that it’s just the first rung on the ladder that the province needs to be climbing.
“There’s a lot more to be done with this. Now, you’ve got your mental health counselling, but the government is going to have to put more funds towards education for counsellors, psychiatrists, which they haven’t been doing,” the mayor stated. “For this to work, they’re going to have to do that, and there isn’t enough brick and mortar right now to do that.”
YWHO Cambridge has officially opened its doors as of Nov. 3, offering free walk-in services to youth aged 12 to 25. The full list of details on the new hub can be found on the YWHO Cambridge website.
