Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is a consortium of mental health clinics at several sites in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its name in French is Centre de Toxicomanie et de Santé Mentale. (The acronym CAMH is most commonly pronounced "Cam-H".) It is one of the University of Toronto's teaching hospitals and a collaborating centre of the World Health Organization.

CAMH was formed in 1998 as a result of the merger of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, the Addiction Research Foundation, the Donwood Institute and Queen Street Mental Health Centre.

Among the focuses of the organization are schizophrenia, severe mood disorders and addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling and nicotine, forensic psychology, and research designed to shape public policy.

CAMH is a teaching hospital with central facilities located in Toronto and 26 community locations throughout the province of Ontario. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto and is a Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre.

Criticism
CAMH's Child And Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic has come under criticism in recent years over its philosophy in the treatment of gender variant children - which has been compared with the reparative therapies advocated by anti-gay and ex-gay organizations in the United States such as National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. The Child And Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic, under the direction of Dr. Kenneth Zucker, openly advocates for the treatment of children who, by their parents' observations are either being overtly effeminate (in boys) or masculine (in girls), and teaches kids to conform to society's expectations of female and male behaviour. Some critics of the Child And Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic, under the direction of Dr. Kenneth Zucker, feel this approach is sexist, homophobic, and at the detriment of natural childhood development.