YOUTH IN AND FROM CARE

February 14, 2026

‘Connecting Futures’ to Support Early High School Leavers

An alternative day school program supporting youth in and from care who have disengaged from school to re-engage, stabilize and sustain their school engagement.

February 15, 2026

Smart Start Post-Secondary Education Supports Help Youth From Care Succeed In Post-Secondary Education

Higher education increases lifetime earnings and builds resilience, while reducing long-term reliance on public systems

February 15, 2026

Adapting the Art of Work National Employment Program for Youth in Care

This venture brings targeted adaptations to the Student’s Commission of Canada’s (SCC) national Art of Work youth employment program to support youth aging out of care who are disconnected from employment and education.

January 1, 2026

Middle School Educational Anchors

Statistics show that youth in care lose 4 to 6 months of learning with every placement move, and more than 60% struggle to re-engage in school amid instability. This often results in middle school disengagement

About This Portfolio

Compared to their peers, young people with child welfare experience face significantly higher rates of homelessness, unemployment and involvement with the justice system. They are also far less likely to finish their education. Improving this outlook for youth in and from care requires coordinated, sustained investments in solutions across the spectrum.

That means strengthening families so they can stay together, and ensuring children and youth in care grow up in stable, family-based settings. For young people transitioning out of care, education-to-employment continuum initiatives are critical, to re-engage youth who have left high school early, and reduce the financial barriers to post-secondary education. They also need wraparound supports like stable housing, mental health services, mentorship supports and peer connection that make completing school possible, and supported connections to meaningful, lasting employment by through scalable employment models that encourage lasting attachment to the labour market.

The goal across each stage is the same: ensuring young people who have been in care are not left to navigate adulthood without the foundation they need to thrive.

Our Investees

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Impact Team

Our Youth in Care portfolio is stewarded through a strategic partnership with the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada (CAFC) - Canada’s leading foundation dedicated to improving the lives of children and youth involved in the child welfare system.

This multi-year initiative combines CAFC’s sector expertise, national reach and relationships, with Northpine’s outcomes-focused funding to build a national portfolio of coordinated ventures that drive measurably improved outcomes for young people in and from care.

CAFC's Young People's Advisory Council (YPAC) and national Ambassador community ensure that the strategy is shaped by young people with lived experience in the child welfare system.

Our Approach

We invest in organizations that center the lived realities, needs and experiences of children, youth and families who have been involved with child welfare systems. Our approach focuses on identifying and addressing critical service gaps and advancing alternative response models achieving outcomes for youth in care across education and employment pathways, while also advancing stronger, more stable family outcomes.

The Youth In and From Care portfolio prioritizes outcome-specific solutions that bring together essential levers, such as housing stabilization, mental health, and strong relational supports with innovations in academic and employment programming, delivered cross-sectorally in a coordinated and sequenced manner. Together, these elements are designed to strengthen outcomes at both the venture and system level by reducing fragmentation, aligning efforts across actors and investments, and increasing the overall effectiveness of the portfolio.

What We Fund

Approaches that are relational, trauma-informed and include wraparound and integrated supports
Organizations that understand the complex and intersecting barriers facing young people transitioning out of care and delivering initiatives achieving education and/or employment related outcomes
Organizations who employ and rely on data to guide decision-making, inform program design and to demonstrate success
Approaches that integrate and build on established best practice while allowing space for innovation, iteration and learning
Cross-sectoral collaborations leveraging the strengths and expertise of partners across multiple sectors that impact and engage children, youth and families

Investee Highlights

Browse updates and media coverage of our investee partners, showcasing their work and impact.

March 11, 2026

UCN Recognized again as one of Manitoba's Top 25 Places to Work

University College of the North (UCN) is proud to announce that it has been recognized for a third consecutive year as one of Manitoba's Top Employers. This annual competition is organized by the editors of Canada's Top 100 Employers.

January 20, 2026

Nsimba’s Story

Nsimba recently visited StepStones for Youth after transitioning successfully out of our program a few years ago. Before he joined StepStones in 2018, he was at one of the lowest points in his life. Isolation weighed heavily on him

August 12, 2025

He's sent out 1,100 job applications — and still hasn't been hired. Canada's youth are facing rising unemployment rates

According to Statistics Canada, people age 15 to 24 are currently facing the highest unemployment rate outside of the pandemic since the mid-1990s.

January 26, 2026

Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa: Committed to Excellence and Continuous Improvement

The Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa (CASO) recently participated in a province-wide audit of child welfare organizations conducted by KPMG.