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About Us

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  • Distress Centre Halton is a non-profit charitable organization that provides telephone support to people 365 days of the year. We are a unique service in that we train volunteers for front-line work providing emotional support and befriending to people in distress or crisis.

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  • Our service improves the health and wellness of people in our community and the quality of life of those who are feeling anxious, isolated, and vulnerable.

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  • Distress Centre Halton has a volunteer Board of Directors, 5 full-time staff and 5 part-time staff. We have 2 locations in Oakville and Georgetown. Currently we have approximately 325 volunteers supporting our community.

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Distress Line

The Distress Line is the core of our service offering. Our volunteers are trained to provide emotional support and encouragement, suicide risk assessment and prevention, as well as community resource and referral information.

TeleCheck

TeleCheck is our outbound call program that supports isolated seniors, people struggling with their mental health, caregivers, Alzheimer’s patients, clients awaiting mental health services, or people needing additional non-clinical mental health support, including post-secondary students at school.

Speaking Engagements

We’re available to speak with your club, class, or groups about the services provided by Distress Centre Halton, or to teach courses on active listening skills, de-escalation techniques, and mental health in general.

Our Services

Services
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Our Team

Staff

Full-Time

Dara Eisner Clancy, Executive Director
Mark Howarth, Senior Manager, Operations
Kathleen Legaspi, BSW, RSW, Senior Manager, TeleCheck

Rachel Leslie, BSW, RSW, Manager, Volunteer Engagement & Communications

Prabhleen Mangat, Volunteer Coordinator

Part-Time

Lauren Anastasi, Supervisor, Community Development & Relations, Hamilton

Samantha Brown, TeleCheck Coordinator

Rose Ford, Volunteer & Operations Administrator

Katica Juric, Volunteer Coordinator

Mahein Kazi, Outreach Coordinator, Halton

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And our 300+ trained volunteers.

Board

Gail Cartwright, Chair

Craig Redick, Secretary

Richard Darjes, Treasurer

Renato Discenza

Jodi Dwyer

Feeroza Suchak

Diane Woodall​​

Annual General Meeting Reports | AGM 2016/2017 | AGM 2017/2018 | AGM 2018/2019 AGM 2019/2020 | AGM 2020/2021 | AGM 2021/2022 | AGM 2022/2023 | AGM 2023/2024 | 2024/2025 Impact Report​​

Our Team
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Our History

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Distress Centre Halton was formed through the consolidation of three organizations, all of which originated in the 1970s – Distress Centre Oakville, Distress Centre North Halton, and Telecare Burlington. 

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Originally, volunteers answered the phone lines on Friday and Saturday nights only. As the demand for the service grew, the hours were extended to 24/7, 365 days of the year. In our 2024/2025 fiscal year we supported 36,561 community connections.​

Our History
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