Ontario College Advanced Diploma in Child and Youth Care

St. Clair College

Graduates of the Child and Youth Care program engage with children, youth, and their families in their everyday lives, use a relational approach to developing therapeutic relationships and build on their strengths and capacities to promote optimal development and facilitate positive changes. Many of the children and youth receiving care, and their families, experience complex needs and challenges associated with multiple factors such as socioeconomic factors, systemic factors, mental health, trauma, cognition, learning, and/or developmental exceptionalities and/or involvement in the justice system.Child and Youth Care graduates demonstrate an understanding of and ability to adhere to values and guiding principles in their practice. Learn to Implement and evaluate a range of prevention, intervention and treatment strategies for children, youth and their families with difficult home situations, substance abuse, behavioural problems, mental health challenges, homelessness, self-harm, suicidal ideation and conflicts with the law, Interventions include crisis intervention, conflict management, problem solving, counselling, activity programming and group work.Career OpportunitiesChild and Youth Care graduates are valuable members of inter-professional teams and can expect to work with children, youth and their families across a variety of settings, including community-based child and youth development programs, parent education and family support, school-based programs, community mental health, group care, live-in treatment centres, day and live-in treatment programs, early intervention, home-based care and treatment, private practice, clinical facilities, child and youth mental health and psychiatric centres, rehabilitation programs, paediatric health care, child protection and youth justice.