Welcome to IYS
Empowering Indigenous Communities
Supporting the advancement of youth, families, and communities across the nation.
WHO WE ARE
Our Restoring Care. Strengthening Families. Supporting Indigenous Youth to Thrive.
Indigenous Youth Services was created to confront a reality that cannot be ignored: systems intended to protect Indigenous youth have too often perpetuated harm instead of preventing it. Families are separated, identities are fractured, and care becomes centered on control and containment rather than healing, understanding, and growth.
Today, more Indigenous youth are living in systems of care than at the peak of the Residential School era. While the structures have changed, the outcome remains deeply familiar: separation from family, disruption of identity, and long-term harm that echoes across generations.
We exist to change that trajectory.
Indigenous Youth Services delivers culturally grounded, trauma-informed support that prioritizes family preservation, community connection, and long-term wellbeing. Our work moves beyond crisis response and compliance-driven models, focusing instead on stability, understanding, and sustainable change for Indigenous youth and the people who support them.
Our Mission
Indigenous Youth Services exists to transform how care is delivered to Indigenous youth and families. At a time when more Indigenous youth are living in systems of care than at the peak of the Residential School era, we work to reverse cycles of separation, disconnection, and harm by bringing care back to its rightful foundation: family, community, and understanding. Our approach moves beyond crisis response and compliance-driven systems, focusing instead on culturally grounded, trauma-informed support that strengthens families, preserves identity, and builds long-term stability.
Operating at the forefront of care innovation, Indigenous Youth Services expands access to meaningful support through models such as CareLink, allowing us to reach youth and families in even the most remote and underserved communities and bring care into places it has never reliably existed. By reducing geographic and systemic barriers, we help keep families together while ensuring youth receive consistent, responsive support. Through initiatives such as Return Home, we address critical gaps within traditional systems by delivering individualized, in-person support directly to youth in group care settings, ensuring care begins where youth are rather than waiting for crisis or transition.
Grounded in relational, preventative, and culturally respectful principles, Indigenous Youth Services restores humanity to systems of care and creates pathways for Indigenous youth to heal, grow, and thrive within their families and communities.