There was the young University athlete who became depressed, suicidal and was cut from her team by a coach who didn't understand or know how to help.
There were clients aged 12 to 15 in Residential Programs who conducted a survey with peers and concluded it was a broad problem - adults didn't know how to handle young people with mental health issues.
But one surprising fact came out of the questionnaire.
Staff at New Path Family and Youth Services were getting it right.
"What's happening here in New Path is special," said Sharif Mahdy of The Students Commission of Canada. "We support 265 other organizations so I get this perspective of what's happening wih young people across the country."
At a small ceremony at the New Path Ferris Lane offices on Friday morning, the organization was recognized my MPP Ann Hoggarth for successful initiatives made possible by a $383,500 Ontario Trillium Foundation grant.
Hoggarth called it 'well deserved recognition' of important work.
"I would like to formally congratulate New Path Youth and Family Services for all the hard work that you do for our community. . This is one of the largest OTF grants that I have had the pleasure of announcing and it is a testament to the success of your programs."
New Path's programs are being shared across the province, a great point of pride for program supervisor Lisa Kalfus, who expressed gratitude for the grant.
"The investment has really helped our youth and families, coaches and adult allies to transform their lives," said Kalfus.
New Path has developed a culture where staff work hand in hand wih youth instead of in an authoritative way, officials said.
"The formula I think is treating young people like they're people. I'll do training and I'll say, ask them how you're doing. Ask them how their day went. And people will say 'Thank you so much. You're a genius,' "said Mahdy.
Adults need to keep check their assumptions, keep asking questions and take some lessons from New Path, he said.
"It takes 3 to 6 months to a year for a relationship to develop. We've done research. Relationships don't form until six months for young people with people they don't know," said Mahdy.
"As adults are a bit impatient and they expect a lot of young people. And they're not persistent. At New Path they are. We see results here. We've got adults playing the long game not the short game. That's the key," he said.
He's been working with youth for 15 years and is reaping the rewards when the most challenging clients from ten year ago approach him now to say 'You changed my life."
There's s a deep culture of meaningful youth engagement at New Path, he says, and it's not about coddling young people.
"We do hear that resistance but it takes a village to raise a child. In North America we've got a bit of an individualistic perspective. Every person for themselves and our outcomes are lower than other countries."
"We tend to think we have it all figured out but there's so much learning to go from across the world."
