After eight years of All in for Youth, the results are becoming clear: when families get help to meet their needs, students come to school. When youth come to school with a caring team that supports them, they stay in school. And when students stay in school, they graduate.

Graduating high school isn’t just an academic achievement. This important milestone sets a strong foundation for a stable future. These individual impacts ripple out into the wider community and across generations, creating a community where everyone can thrive.

But too many students and their families experience barriers that make it harder to stay in school. That’s why AIFY unites local experts, resources, and supports right inside our neighbourhood schools.

By helping students overcome challenges related to mental health, academic success, and family stability, they are empowered to build stronger futures for themselves and their families.

Led by United Way of the Alberta Capital Region, AIFY is a collaborative of schools, front-line agencies, and sector experts. This coordinated, community-driven approach is helping to create lasting change by ensuring that vulnerable youth receive the support they need—right where they need it most.

While we’re thrilled to know that AIFY is working, we can’t lose momentum. United Way is focused on ensuring this life-changing collaborative can continue to help students and their families thrive, and we need your support.

Students come to school Many students face challenges when it comes to getting engaged in school, making friends, and feeling like they belong. AIFY helps students build and strengthen these connections within their school community. Through Out-of-School Time (OST) and mentoring, students have opportunities to build friendships and engage in leadership activities. Students can access mental health supports and success coaches to help them navigate difficult relationships. Connecting with a success coach also helps students feel a greater sense of belonging. Support workers proactively reach out to families of students with low attendance, offering assistance and resources to encourage consistent participation.

Students stay in school

AIFY is available at schools in highly socially vulnerable neighbourhoods, where families may be more mobile. This means students are more likely to switch schools before completing the school level, or change school divisions for the next level of education. Because of this mobility, divisions are unable to track students who successfully transition but enroll in a different division.

AIFY promotes successful school transitions — moving between elementary, junior high, and high school — by helping students prepare for what to expect in upcoming school transitions and connecting them to older peer mentors. Success coaching and OST help students transition into an AIFY school, adjust to their new environment, make friends, and catch up on curriculum.

Students graduate

All in for Youth is empowering students to progress through school and achieve success. AIFY helps students complete high school by providing tutoring, success coaching, and family support to overcome personal and academic challenges, enabling students to stay on track to complete their education. Targeted AIFY supports help students develop both academic and personal skills. OST programming and mentoring offer crucial learning and social support; success coaches assist students with goal setting, building resiliency, and academic support. Data shows that years spent in an AIFY school is a significant predictor of high school completion. For all measures of high school completion, the proportion of students completing high school in AIFY schools has steadily increased over the years.

All in for Youth helps us all thrive

Because of supporters like you, All in for Youth students and families are creating meaningful change in their lives—building stronger communities for all of us.

When we invest in early and wraparound supports, we create more opportunities for young people to thrive at school, at home, and into adulthood. While every path is different, these supports help eliminate barriers, increase the likelihood of positive outcomes, and reduce the need for more costly interventions down the road. This impact ripples out to foster a more connected and thriving region where no one is left behind.

Together, we’re creating the conditions for brighter futures.