Blogs
Partnering for Progress: The Graham Boeckh Foundation Integrated Youth Services Award
Across Canada, youth and families often face a complex web of services, referrals, and wait times. The system can be difficult to navigate, making it harder for people to access the right care, at the right time, and in the right place.
:quality(80))
Improving access to care for young people
For many young people, help can feel out of reach.
Addressing this challenge requires strong partnerships across systems. It means bringing people together to identify what’s working and help proven approaches reach more communities. That’s why HEC and the Graham Boeckh Foundation (GBF) partnered to recognize Integrated Youth Services (IYS) teams within the Right Care Challenge (2025–26).
Integrated Youth Services is a proven approach to reshaping how care is delivered by bringing services together in a more coordinated, easy-to-navigate way.
“Partnering with the Graham Boeckh Foundation to support and highlight outstanding Integrated Youth Services teams is part of our commitment to spreading what works. By recognizing these collaborative models, we can help ensure safe, high-quality care is available to everyone.”
What we can learn from the Integrated Youth Services model
Across our work with communities and partners, we consistently hear that fragmentation — not lack of effort — is one of the biggest barriers to timely, appropriate care. Recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) reinforces this reality, underscoring the need for systems that are easier to enter and navigate.
Integrated Youth Services (IYS) is one response to this challenge. Rather than relying on siloed programs and referrals, IYS brings together cross-sector providers and community organizations to deliver coordinated supports in accessible, youth-friendly settings.
A defining feature of IYS is the meaningful engagement of youth and families in co-designing services. By embedding lived experience into governance, design and evaluation, IYS ensures that services are not only accessible, but relevant, responsive and trusted. When young people help shape the services intended to support them, communities build models that youth are more likely to access early, before challenges escalate.
While the IYS model focuses specifically on youth, its core principles offer insights for the broader healthcare system:
Make access easier by designing a system where help is intuitive to find and closer to home.
Integrate diverse services, from clinical interventions to peer support and housing, to support the whole person rather than treating a single symptom.
Expand the definition of care to include social determinants, recognizing that clinical outcomes are connected to a person’s community and environment.
Embed youth voice and co-design to ensure services reflect what matters to youth, reduce stigma and build trust.
These principles demonstrate how thoughtful system design can improve access, coordination and outcomes. Partnerships with organizations like HEC help ensure those lessons are shared, adapted and scaled across jurisdictions.
“Integrated Youth Services show us what is possible when care is designed with young people, not just for them. By embedding youth voice, cross-sector collaboration and a no-wrong-door approach, these teams are demonstrating how we can build a more responsive, equitable system of care for the next generation.”
Celebrating the award winners
Three recipients were selected through the Graham Boeckh Foundation award for their demonstrated ability to expand the scope of care, improve access and reflect IYS principles in their communities.
Division of Family Practice – Kootenay Boundary (British Columbia): Recognized for increasing youth access to integrated health services through community education. They are bridging an awareness gap that often leads to crisis when youth and families do not know how to access the right care close to home. Their work shows that making supports easier to find can be just as important as expanding services.
Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario Cambridge site, led by Langs Community Health Centre (Ontario): Recognized for providing immediate, mental health and care navigation support, connecting youth with appropriate, no-cost services that help them avoid emergency department visits for needs like psychiatric referrals or finding family physicians. Their approach shows how timely guidance can help people find the right care sooner.
YMCA of Southwest Nova Scotia Association (Nova Scotia): Recognized for expanding access to walk-in and rapid response supports in an accessible, youth-centred space. Their work provides low-barrier entry points to help people get help sooner, preventing crisis escalation and avoiding reliance on emergency services. Their experience highlights how simple, low-barrier entry points can make it easier for people to get help before challenges grow.
Moving Care Forward
The solutions to many of our healthcare challenges already exist in communities across Canada. The opportunity is to learn from them and help them grow.
Through partnerships like this one, the Graham Boeckh Foundation and HEC are helping to surface, connect and amplify approaches that improve access and show what is possible when care is designed around people’s needs.
:quality(80))