Youth and family engagement
Ensuring the voices of children, young people, families, and communities help shape care, services, and systems change.
Youth and family engagement
Why this work matters
When children, young people, families, and communities are engaged, services can better respond to their needs. Embedding these voices into system initiatives improves access to care, increases community awareness, and helps reduce stigma.
It also improves infrastructure and services, which makes the system itself more sustainable.
More than listening
Meaningful engagement isn't just about listening to and amplifying voices.
It's about ensuring children, young people, families, and communities have an active role in decision-making processes at the organizational and system levels.
Supporting youth and family engagement
Youth engagement
Empowering young people as valuable partners to address issues and make decisions that affect them personally or that they believe to be important.
Family engagement
Including families as active decision makers and equal partners at organizational and system levels.
Engagement grants
Our engagement grants are helping build our sector’s capacity to support meaningful engagement at organizational and system levels across Ontario.
Hear from the organizations supported in the first engagement grant cycle, as they explain why engagement matters for child and youth mental health and substance use services.
Advisory councils
Youth advisory council
Family advisory council
Resources supporting youth and family engagement
From youth-led perspectives and quality standards to practical implementation tools, these resources bring together evidence and guidance to support meaningful youth and family engagement.