Nunavut girls group home re-opens, again, for troubled teens

Family Services Minister Johnny Mike, right, and his acting deputy minister, Jenny Tierney hosted an open house, June 9, for the newly renovated Illagiitugut Group Home.

An open house—which included government officials, staff, media and members of the public—marks completion of renovations to the Illagiitugut youth group home in Iqaluit on June 9. Young female clients will have help with their homework and organized evening activities. The centre will have an elder on site and visiting family members will be able to use a guest suite. (PHOTOS BY BETH BROWN)

Welcome baskets in colourful bedrooms await incoming female residents of the newly-opened Illagiitugut Group Home in Iqaluit.

Iqaluit’s Illagiitugut Group Home has reopened—this time as a haven for high-risk young women.

Under new management, and with $350,000 worth of renovations completed June 1, Illagiitugut will be be able to house eight female clients at a time, aged 12 to 19, from across Nunavut.

And the agency running the revamped 24/7 residential facility intends to offer a level of clinical care not yet seen in a Nunavut youth home.

The home, which has sheltered youth in need since the 1980s, originally offered care to young children with mental and physical disabilities who could not be cared for by their families. But in 2013, the Government of Nunavut changed its focus and it became a home for troubled teens.

Last September, the group home closed when the contract with the last service providers expired and the GN had no one lined up to continue running the place.

Because the contract had to be reissued, services were temporarily suspended and homes were found elsewhere for three young women who were living there at the time. Those three youth have been given the option to return to the group home if they are still in need of care.

The new service contract was awarded to Halifax-based Atlantic Youth Services, an organization that also runs a boys’ group home called 4-D North in Cambridge Bay.

“Before we weren’t able to provide the social and emotional supports [needed for] high risk clients. They would have to be sent out of the territory,” the Department of Family Services acting deputy minister Jenny Tierney told Nunatsiaq News, during an open house June 9 to mark the new facility’s opening.

“One of the goals has been to repatriate clients back to the territory. Now we are able to begin the process of doing that and plan for the future,” she said, adding that if all goes well, the department could “mirror” the new program throughout the territory.

But Iqaluit city councilor Terry Dobbin is skeptical of the department’s actions with respect to the group home.

“Why only girls? What about boys? What about children with [disabilities]?” asked Dobbin, who worked at the group home for 12 years when it served much younger children with disabilities.

Dobbin said he wants to see a long-term strategy developed to support all youth.

“It’s an injustice sending Inuit children to southern group homes,” he said. “These kids were integrated into the community. When will they be coming home again?”

Illagiitugut’s new manager TL Johannesson said the unfortunate starts and stops over the years will not impact the home’s relaunch. “This is a solid program. It certainly isn’t going to be inconsistent. That’s one thing I pride myself on is consistency with kids.”

The new group home will be, “open to change and open to being current and treating kids the way they should be treated in a group home,” Johannesson said adding, that will be one of its strengths.


Aside from a stable of volunteers, the facility will employ four full-time and two part-time local staff along with fly-in youth care workers and a clinical therapist. The out-of-town workers will remain at the home on 10-week rotations and therapists will work on six-week rotations.

The department has a wait list of women who can be repatriated back to the territory and intake will begin shortly.

“It’s a step forward,” said Johnny Mike, family services minister, at the June 9 opening. “We have business to do here and I’m proud of it.”