Lucas Wade
Registered Social Service Worker · Psychotherapist
Executive Director · Founder · OCSWSSW
Lived experience
- OCSWSSW No. 853238
- RSSW, Psychotherapist
- In practice since 2012
- Limited availability
Our Team
Lucas Shane Wade
Founder & Executive Director
Registered Social Service Worker, Psychotherapist and Recovery Coach
I’m the founder and Executive Director of Spotlight Recovery, a Registered Social Service Worker, psychotherapist, and recovery coach with more than 14 years of experience across addiction treatment, mental health, social services, and recovery-focused program development.
I’ve worked with organizations including Edgewood Health Network, Canadian Addiction Treatment Centres, Cornerstone to Recovery, and Centres for Health and Healing, in direct client care, recovery coaching, residential treatment, sober living, and program development. I helped establish a women’s-only nonprofit treatment centre, launch a sober living home, and build a mental health support program at George Brown College that grew to more than 200 student coaches.
My broader social service work spans the United Nations, international field placements in community development and youth mental health, and projects with government and community partners abroad. I’ve also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for addiction charities, delivered keynotes at mental health conferences, and appeared on CBC’s The National.
I hold an Honours Community Services Certificate and an Honours Social Service Worker Diploma from George Brown College, along with a Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies from York University.
In recovery since 2012, I bring firsthand knowledge of addiction, treatment, and long-term recovery to my work, and it shapes how Spotlight Recovery is built and the standard of care I expect us to provide. This is more than my professional practice. It’s the dream born from my own recovery, created to give others the kind of life-changing support that once helped me rebuild my own life.
Specialties
- Cannabis addiction
- Trauma
- Anxiety & depression
- Family dynamics
- Next-level recovery
- Inner child work
Think Lucas might be the right fit?
Call and we’ll talk it through. If someone else on the team is the better match, we’ll say so — that’s the whole point of the first conversation.
Free consultation · No commitment · Confidential
Meet the team.
Every clinician is registered in their profession, brings lived experience in recovery, or both.
Dr. David Klein
Family Physician & GP Psychotherapist
M.D. · CCFP · CPSO
Tyler Walker
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
CRPO
Jordan Smith
Addiction Counsellor · Recovery Coach
Community Service Work
Lived experience
Frequently Asked Questions
Who started Spotlight Recovery?
Lucas — who’s been in recovery since 2012 and working in the field ever since. Spotlight Recovery was established in March 2020, and between us our team has worked with thousands of people across Simcoe County and online across Ontario.
It was built as a network rather than a solo practice on purpose: coaching and clinical care in one location, so people don’t have to start over every time their needs change.
Why are you an abstinence-based practice?
Because attempting to manage an addiction indefinitely is exhausting, and being free of it is better than the best version of “managing it”. We’ve watched people spend years attempting to control something they could have put down.
That’s not a judgement of anyone still deciding — almost nobody arrives ready, and we work with people wherever they actually are. We’re just honest that we’re aiming at something more than harm reduction, and we’d rather tell you that up front than halfway in.
Who will I be working with?
Whoever fits what you need. The team includes Registered Psychotherapists, Registered Social Service Workers, addictions counsellors, and recovery and sober coaches, with more than 20 years of combined experience.
Being a network rather than one person means you can move between kinds of support without leaving, and without telling your story from scratch to somebody new.
What are your team’s credentials?
Our clinicians are registered with their professional colleges — Registered Psychotherapists with CRPO, and Registered Social Service Workers with OCSWSSW. That means regulated training, supervised practice, and accountability you can check for yourself. Our coaches bring lived experience alongside coach-specific training.
Each team member’s designation and registration number is listed on their bio, so you can look them up on the college register before you ever speak to us.
What if my counsellor isn’t the right fit?
Tell us and we’ll match you with someone else. It’s not awkward and it’s not a complaint — fit is the single biggest predictor of whether this works, and it isn’t something you can judge in advance.
Because we’re a team, switching means an internal handover rather than starting over somewhere new.