Changing the system

About Indigenous Youth Services

Indigenous Youth Services is transforming Indigenous youth care from separation-driven systems to family-rooted support that keeps children connected to culture, identity, and community.

We exist to transform how care is experienced by Indigenous youth and families. We were founded in direct response to systems that, despite being designed to protect, too often separate families, disrupt identity, and replace understanding with control. Today, more Indigenous youth are living within systems of care than at the peak of the Residential School era. This reality demands more than incremental change. It demands a fundamental shift in how care is understood, delivered, and sustained.

Our mission is to help reverse cycles of separation and harm by restoring care to its rightful foundation: family, community, culture, and understanding. We challenge models that remove youth rather than support families, that manage behavior rather than address its cause, and that prioritize compliance over connection. Instead, we work to build care environments that are relational, preventative, and grounded in dignity.

We believe youth thrive when they are supported within their natural environments, surrounded by people who know them, understand their history, and are committed to their long-term wellbeing. Connection to family, culture, and community is not supplemental to care; it is essential. Our work focuses on keeping youth connected whenever possible, while providing the structure, guidance, and individualized support required for stability, healing, and meaningful growth. Through understanding-driven, culturally grounded approaches, Indigenous Youth Services creates pathways that strengthen families, restore trust, and support Indigenous youth to heal, grow, and thrive within the communities they belong to.

Why We Exist

For generations, Indigenous families have been impacted by systems that respond to struggle with removal rather than support. Many youth enter care not because of a lack of love, but because families are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and denied access to timely, meaningful assistance. Instead of strengthening families at moments of vulnerability, the child welfare system too often intervenes by separating children from their homes, cultures, and communities, creating harm that far exceeds the circumstances that led to involvement.

Once inside these systems, Indigenous youth are frequently subjected to instability, repeated placement changes, and environments that fail to honor their identity or address root causes. Cultural connection is treated as optional rather than essential. Language, community, and belonging are disrupted or lost entirely. Care becomes focused on control, compliance, and risk management, while the deeper needs of the youth are left unmet.

The consequences of this failure are devastating and long-lasting. Indigenous youth leaving care face drastically increased rates of homelessness, incarceration, and premature death in the years that follow. Many exit systems without family connection, cultural grounding, or the internal stability needed to navigate adulthood. What was framed as “protection” too often results in lifelong harm, reinforcing cycles of displacement, marginalization, and loss.

Indigenous Youth Services exists to interrupt this pattern.

We work to fill the gaps left by traditional models by delivering proactive, prevention-focused care that strengthens families before separation becomes the default response. Our approach prioritizes cultural connection, relational safety, and continuity of support, recognizing that identity and belonging are foundational to wellbeing. Our goal is not to manage behavior or contain crisis, but to support lasting stability by addressing the underlying needs that behavior communicates and by restoring the supports that families and youth were denied.

This work is not optional. It is necessary. The current system is failing Indigenous youth, and incremental change is no longer enough. Indigenous Youth Services is committed to building care models that prevent unnecessary removal, restore cultural connection, and create real pathways to safety, dignity, and long-term wellbeing for Indigenous youth and their families.

Innovation That Expands Access to Care

Fulfilling our mission requires more than intention. It requires innovation that responds to the realities Indigenous families face. Many families live in remote or underserved communities where traditional services are limited, inconsistent, or entirely unavailable. Others are navigating care systems that lack continuity, individualized support, and meaningful connection. Too often, access to care depends on geography, placement, or proximity to services rather than actual need.

Indigenous Youth Services was built to remove these barriers.

CareLink

CareLink is our innovative virtual care model designed to eliminate geographic and systemic obstacles to support. Through CareLink, Indigenous Youth Services provides consistent guidance, coaching, and youth support regardless of where a family is located or how a youth’s placement may change over time. Support does not reset with each transition. It remains continuous, relational, and responsive.

CareLink allows us to reach families in remote and underserved communities, bring care into places it has never reliably existed, and maintain stability through moments of change. By expanding access without requiring relocation or separation, CareLink helps keep families together while ensuring youth receive timely, ongoing support that adapts to their needs. This model transforms care from something families must seek out into something that is reliably present.

Return Home Initiative

The Return Home Initiative addresses critical gaps within group care environments where individualized, relational support is often missing. Youth in these settings are frequently supported by generalized staffing models that leave little room for personalized care, cultural connection, or preparation for life beyond care.

Through Return Home, Indigenous Youth Services delivers individualized, in-person support directly to youth within group care settings. This includes stabilization, mentorship, skill development, and relational support tailored to each youth’s needs and goals. Rather than waiting for a transition or crisis to occur, care begins immediately, where youth are.

By filling care gaps in real time, the Return Home Initiative reduces placement breakdowns, supports smoother transitions, and creates a bridge between institutional environments and family- or community-based living. It ensures that youth are not simply housed, but actively supported in building stability, connection, and a path forward.

Our Commitment

Indigenous Youth Services is committed to restoring humanity to systems of care and advocating for approaches that prioritize connection, dignity, and long-term wellbeing. We work alongside families, caregivers, communities, and partners to build environments where Indigenous youth are not managed or contained, but understood, supported, and empowered to thrive.

Our mission is not only to provide services, but to help reshape how care is delivered, how families are supported, and how Indigenous youth are valued within the systems that impact their lives.

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Our founder

Christian R. Brown President & Founder

Indigenous Youth Services was founded by Christian R. Brown, a behavioral specialist, author, and systems-level practitioner with extensive experience supporting Indigenous youth, families, and care systems. Christian is Haida First Nations from Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, and his work is shaped by both professional expertise and lived cultural experience.

With years of frontline practice across in-home supports, foster and group care, crisis intervention, and complex behavioral environments, Christian brings a deep, practical understanding of trauma, behavior, and family systems. His work is grounded in the belief that behavior is not the problem itself, but a meaningful signal of unmet needs, disrupted supports, and systemic gaps that require thoughtful, responsive care rather than punishment or removal.

Christian is the developer of several widely respected behavioral frameworks, including the A.I.M. Model (Action, Intention, Motivation) and the Three S’s of Intervention, which are used by caregivers and professionals to move beyond reactive responses and toward sustainable, internalized change. These models emphasize stabilization without harm, root-cause understanding, and long-term growth that strengthens autonomy and resilience.

As a published author and sought-after consultant, Christian works with organizations and care systems to improve outcomes for youth with complex needs, bridging evidence-informed practice with real-world application. His work reflects a rare blend of analytical rigor, cultural awareness, and frontline insight.

Christian founded Indigenous Youth Services after witnessing the preventable harm caused by unnecessary family separation and the chronic lack of accessible, culturally grounded in-home supports for Indigenous families. Programs such as The Strong Home Project were created to address this gap directly by prioritizing prevention, family preservation, and care delivered where it has the greatest impact, in the home.

Indigenous Youth Services reflects Christian’s enduring commitment to strengthening families, honoring Indigenous knowledge, and ensuring that youth can remain safely connected to their culture, community, and identity while building stable, healthy futures.