About the Client

Children’s Mental Health Ontario (CMHO) is the leading voice for Ontario’s publicly funded child and youth mental health sector. Through advocacy, education, research, and collaboration, CMHO works alongside service providers, young people, families, caregivers, researchers, and policymakers to strengthen mental health services across the province.

About the Event

The Opportunity

Under the theme Interwoven: Co-Creating the Future of Child and Youth Mental Health, CMHO sought to bring together diverse voices from across the child and youth mental health sector to explore new ideas, strengthen partnerships, and collectively shape the future of care for children, youth, and families. The event needed to balance thought leadership, practical learning, networking, lived-experience perspectives, wellness, advocacy, and meaningful opportunities for connection—all within an environment that felt welcoming, inclusive, and human-centered.

The Experience

LOMA Agency partnered with CMHO to design and deliver a three-day experience in Toronto, including a pre-conference gathering followed by two full conference days at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel. The conference welcomed nearly 700 attendees representing organizations and communities from across Ontario and beyond. Participants included executive leaders, practitioners, researchers, policymakers, youth advocates, caregivers, and family members—creating a uniquely diverse learning environment.

Instead of treating networking as an afterthought, the experience was intentionally designed to encourage connection throughout the event. Dedicated spaces such as the Connection Café provided opportunities for informal conversations, reflection, and relationship-building between sessions. Wellness activities (including a meet-and-greet with the most adorable group of therapy dogs!), sensory-friendly environments, poster presentations, and interactive learning formats supported a more accessible and attendee-centric experience.

The exhibit hall served as another hub for engagement, bringing together sponsors, community organizations, and service providers. A conference-wide exhibitor passport encouraged attendees to connect with exhibitors while creating additional value for sponsors and partners.

The Outcome

A defining characteristic of the 2026 conference was its commitment to bringing diverse perspectives into the conversation.

Programming highlighted collaboration across sectors and emphasized the importance of co-creation when building the future of child and youth mental health services. Voices from youth, families, service providers, researchers, and community leaders contributed to discussions around innovation, equity, systems change, and emerging models of care. The result was an event that felt less like a traditional conference and more like a community gathering focused on collective progress.

The 2026 CMHO Conference achieved record-scale engagement, welcoming approximately almost 700 registered participants. The event created meaningful opportunities for learning, collaboration, and community connection and demonstrated strong exhibitor and sponsor engagement, with a highly trafficked exhibit hall, successful poster presentations, and strong participation in networking and experiential activations throughout the event.

Most importantly, the gathering reinforced CMHO’s role as a convener for the sector—bringing together diverse perspectives and creating a shared space to imagine what comes next for child and youth mental health in Ontario.

Key Stats