News Mar 9, 2017 – 5:10 pm EST

Girls’ group home in Nunavut capital to re-open in June

Halifax-based agency that runs Cambridge Bay home chosen as service provider

By PETER VARGA

The Illagiitugut Iqaluit Girl’s Group Home is expected re-open by June after being closed for nine months due to failed efforts by the Nunavut government to replace an outgoing service provider before the last contract expired. Atlantic Youth, a Halifax-based company that runs a similar youth home in Cambridge Bay, will run the Iqaluit facility. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

Iqaluit’s Illagiitugut group home for youth will re-open its doors as a residence for female adolescents this June, under a new service provider.

Nunavut’s Department of Family Services signed a service contract last month with Atlantic Youth, a Halifax-based agency that also runs a group home in Cambridge Bay called 4D North.

The youth care service agency’s chief executive officer, Andrew Middleton, visited the Illagiitugut facility on Feb. 14 and met with family services personnel, “to discuss next steps and the programming that will be offered,” the department told Nunatsiaq News.

Officials with the department say they expect the facility, known officially as the Illagiitugut Iqaluit Girl’s Group Home, will be up and running in June, “at the latest.”

The group home closed Sept. 30 last year when the Nunavut government failed to find someone else to run the facility after the contract with the last service provider, B.C.-based Ivik Enterprises, expired.

Illagiitugut, which accommodates eight residents, will re-open to the same clients as last year, offering 24-hour residential care “with specialized programming and treatment services” to female residents under the age of 19, a director with family services told Nunatsiaq News.

Only three residents were living in the facility when it closed last fall, all of whom may return. The department will gradually “repatriate” or take on other clients “currently receiving services out-of-territory” based on reviews of each one, family services said in an email message.

When searching for a contractor, the GN specified it wanted a service provider who “could offer increased programming so that the Government of Nunavut can repatriate clients who are located outside of the territory,” the department stated.

Atlantic Youth will offer programming that will “be specifically tailored to the strengths and needs” of clients. The home offers traditional land-based programs and trauma-focused therapy for youth at risk of violence, self-harm and substance abuse.

The Illagiitugut facility has accommodated Nunavut children and adolescents with various needs since it first opened in the 1980s.

In 2013 the residence was known as the “Illagiitugut Children’s Group Home,” and served mostly younger children with mental or physical disabilities, under the age of 10, whose families could not provide for them.

Family services transformed the facility into a home for youth aged 10 to 16 at the start of 2014, and more recently altered its purpose to serve female adolescents.