Native Child and Family Services of Toronto (NCFST) is Toronto’s largest multi-service Indigenous Agency providing a holistic approach to programs and services for children and families. NCFST strives to further the development of a healthy, whole, and empowered Indigenous community, expand best practices, and instill effective culture-based services that help realize community self-determination. From this approach we contribute to the healing, caring, and well-being for the children and families of the urban Indigenous community as per our mission statement:
“Native Child and Family Services of Toronto strives to provide a life of quality, well-being, caring and healing for our children and families in the Toronto Native Community. We do this by creating a service model that is culture based and respects the values of Native people, the extended family and the right to self-determination.”
-NCFST Mission Statement
Founded in 1986 by concerned members of Toronto’s Indigenous community, NCFST is a highly respected and proud leader in the field of Indigenous human services in Canada. The Agency is driven by the high number of children in the care of Children’s Aid Societies and by the issues facing many Indigenous families in urban areas; issues such as poverty, addictions, family violence, and homelessness. Guided by a vision of being a single point of access to a host of needed services directly under the control and guidance of the Indigenous community itself, NCFST provides a full range of prevention programs, treatment and healing services, early year’s programs, youth programs, and social and recreational programs to all members of Toronto’s Indigenous community. We are also Ontario’s only full-service, off-reserve child welfare agency under the direct control and management of the Indigenous community. We offer accessible services and programs to all members of our community, including self-identified Status, Non-Status, Inuit and Métis people from pre-birth to the elderly, LGBTQ2+ communities, and people of blended heritage, regardless of economic or social status.