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Social Services

Social Services

Social Services support diverse clients with culturally and linguistically appropriate services to help them navigate challenges and build resilience. We provide newcomers, refugees and those in need, with comprehensive services in settlement, housing, mental health, domestic violence, and support for seniors, youth, and women. These services are tailored to facilitate successful integration into Canadian society, offering essential resources and guidance from initial contact through to full community participation. Serving. Provincial programs like Orientation to Ontario and International Student Connect support international students and newcomers, enhancing their transition and settlement in Canada.

Children

COSTI's Child Services work with both children and parents in creating a supportive environment that fosters spontaneity, creativity, and growth, and one that nurtures their full and healthy development.

Art Therapy Program for Refugee Children

Citizenship Preparation

An extension of our work in helping newcomers adapt and become participating members of Canadian society, COSTI's Citizenship Preparation Program readies participants for the Citizenship Application test by providing them with an overview of Canadian history, geography, and politics.

Citizenship Preparation

Planning for Canada (PfC) Program

Counselling

COSTI's Counselling Services help community members from diverse backgrounds to identify and resolve personal and/or family problems such as child abuse, family breakdown, older adult abuse, addictions, separation, divorce, and sexual abuse. Through a supportive environment, counsellors provide individual, family, marital, and group counselling support to community members from diverse backgrounds residing in Toronto and York Region.

Counselling

Violence Against Women

Gambling, Gaming, and Technology Use

The services offered through COSTI�s Gambling, Gaming, and Technology Use Services include culturally and linguistically appropriate prevention, education, and treatment for gamblers and family members in the Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish Canadian community, as well as outreach and public education prevention activities directed towards various ethno-cultural communities.

Gambling, Gaming and Technology Use

Housing Help Services

COSTI's Housing Services provide a vital lifeline to individuals and families facing the ever-growing issues of homelessness and eviction. Without safe, secure housing, people too often remain trapped in a cycle of poverty. Our Housing Help Services help them to take a major step towards self-reliance.

COSTI's Housing Help Services provide assistance to individuals and families to find housing and prevent homelessness. Utilizing a Housing First Model of service delivery, we offer help with: housing access, eviction prevention, housing stabilization and applications for subsidized housing.

Our services include crisis intervention, market rent housing search, assistance with housing applications, group and individual life skills coaching, direct access to employment counselling, Rent Bank, Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP) and Ontario Electricity Support Program (OESP) applications, weekly ID Clinic, Streets to Homes follow-up, workshops on tenant rights and responsibilities, as well as individual counselling and supports for victims of domestic violence. We also offer specialized services for women, including weekly support groups and mentorship opportunities.

If you are a landlord or homeowner interested in helping refugees and newcomers secure housing and find their first home in Canada call our Housing Help Centre at 416-244-0480.

Eviction Prevention

Financial Supports

Housing Access

Housing Applications

Housing Drop-In

Housing Stabilization

New2Canada Host Program

Mental Health Services

COSTI's Mental health Services provide holistic treatment to Italian Canadians experiencing chronic and severe mental health problems. Counselling staff work closely with a psychiatrist in conducting assessments and follow-up services to individuals in need. Case management, education, and supportive counselling services to the client and his/her family are also offered.

Mental Health Clinic

Orientation to Ontario (O2O) and International Student Connect (ISC)

Services for newcomers and international students in Ontario.

International Student Connect

Orientation to Ontario

Seniors Services

Through recreational, educational, and cultural activities, as well as information, referral, and supportive counselling, COSTI Seniors Services effectively engage and involve this fast growing, yet often overlooked, segment of the community.

Calabrian Benevolent Seniors Day Program

Canadian Italian Family Assistance Association

Elderly Persons' Centre

Encuentro Latino

Le Caravelle Club

Settlement

As the first point of contact that many immigrants and refugees have with Canadian society, COSTI's Settlement Services play a critical role in helping them overcome the difficulties and barriers they face in re-establishing their lives. Individual and group counselling sessions orient newcomers to our society and assist them in accessing basic services.

Planning for Canada (PfC) Program

S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Active Engagement and Integration Project (AEIP)

Settlement Services

The Canadian Immigrant and Integration Program (CIIP)

Therapeutic Groups and Workshops

Women's Services

COSTI’s Women’s Services, encompassing a wide variety of programs, assist women in moving from a situation of dependency and isolation to a more empowered state. Operating with the shared objective of enhancing the full and equal participation of women in all facets of society, COSTI staff assist women of diverse backgrounds and experiences in overcoming economic, health, legal, and cultural barriers.

Housing Drop-In

Learning Together Women's Depression Group

Mindset Makeover - Empowering Professional Newcomer Women of Diverse Backgrounds

The Women's Cyber Squad Training Program

Together We Thrive: Art-Based Support Group for Muslim Women Impacted by Islamophobia

Violence Against Women

Women in Tech Training

Women-specific Employment Training

Youth Services

COSTI's Youth Services have been developed based on the understanding that all young people have the right to be provided with support, guidance, and opportunities. Through these programs, COSTI staff work to ensure that all youth, regardless of personal barriers, are provided with equal access to the services and supports they need to achieve their goals and dreams, and to grow into caring, competent, and healthy adults.

Change Makers Youth Program

netWORKS - Building Connections. Creating Opportunities.

Youth and Health Recreation

Youth Job Connection

Youth Job Connection - Summer

Youth Mentoring Program