About YFS
About Yorktown Family Services
Today, Yorktown Family Services continues to be a vital community resource for thousands of children, youth, women, fathers and families in Toronto’s west end. We strive to empower individuals and families to enjoy healthy relationships and community life. We are dedicated to providing community-based, effective, accessible, quality mental health treatment, prevention and out-reach services, and emergency shelter for abused women and children.
Known for being a leader and agent of change in helping individuals and families not only receive the care and support they need through counselling and education, but also repairing and restoring the family as a unit whenever possible.
Mindful Fathering exists because of the women and children who turned to Yorktown asking us to help their partners and fathers and because of the responsiveness of Yorktown’s dedicated staff, past and present. Their leadership, vision, creativity, clinical knowledge and skills, and sheer dedication and determination, mean that Mindful Fathering has not only come to life, but has also grown, evolved, and thrived.
Infant, Child and Youth Mental Health
Yorktown’s Infant, Child and Youth Mental Health Services provides a comprehensive range of mental health services in a flexible and accessible manner to children and youth from birth to twenty-five years of age and their families, which contributes to the building of healthy communities and productive families. We are committed to creating opportunities for children, youth and young adults with emotional and behavioural difficulties to realize their full potential. The What’s Up Walk-in® clinic provides immediate mental health counselling for children, youth, young adults and their families, and families with infants.
Through our partnership with The Hospital for Sick Children, Yorktown offers the Urban Tele-Mental Health program to provides clients with access to psychiatric counselling, drastically reducing wait-times for service, and the Baby Love program, through which we provide early intervention and prevention of mental health issues in infants.
Yorktown’s West Toronto Youth Hub (WTYH) provides youth with mentorship, development and outreach opportunities that help them communicate, build relationships, learn new skills, increase self-esteem and empower themselves. The WTYH offering drop-in and workshop opportunities for young people to engage in a wide range of social skills development and leadership programs including arts informed activities, homework help, community kitchen, civic engagement, newcomer youth support, and the Youth Advisory Committee, through which youth use their skills to the benefit their community.
Violence Against Women Services
In addition to counselling, services, and intervention and prevention programs, Yorktown provides a safe and secure haven for women and their children fleeing an abusive relationship. Staffed 24 hours a day by a multilingual and multicultural team, the women’s shelter is committed to the well-being and empowerment of women who have been abused and to the healthy development of their children.
Women receive support as they transition out of an abusive situation, into and out of the shelter, as well as crisis-intervention, safety planning and connection to housing. The intention is to ensure that these women are provided with the range of support mechanisms required as they safeguard their own safety and that of their children. In providing these supports, Yorktown works closely with the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, and the Catholic Children’s Aid Society.