The What Next! peer support drop-in centre was an initiative of the North York General Hospital Participants’ Council and began in response to a group of former patients who expressed a need to meet, on a regular basis with people who shared similar experiences, outside of the hospital setting.

The initiative started with a strong belief that providing a safe, welcoming and non-judgemental environment could provide people opportunities to enrich their lives and provide hope through sharing and learning from others, socializing, making friends and having fun.

In 1993 we started the drop-in centre and met once a week in the board room of a community metal health agency. As our membership continued to grow, it soon became clear that larger facilities were needed and we made the move to the Oriole Community Centre in September of 1997. We remained a totally volunteer peer initiative committed to meeting the social/recreational needs of members. Members also became quite vocal about their need to have this type of support available on a more regular basis and so we continued to look for innovative ways in which to fund the expansion of this initiative.

In 2003 in partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association of Toronto we submitted a funding proposal to the Ministry of Health & Long Term Care and were successful in this endeavour. With formal funding we were able to expand our program to a five day a week program and find a permanent location for the drop-in. In October of 2004 we moved to our current location at Leslie and York Mills and are very pleased to be a neighbour and tenant of the Canadian Red Cross.

At this time we were pleased to warmly welcome interested members from the former Friends & Advocates – North York program. The spirit, energy and experiences of these participants were valued contributions to the successful expansion of the What Next! program.