Nunavut girls home set to reopen after 8-month closure

Nunavut's only girls group home is set to reopen next month, with a new organization at the helm.

Atlantic Youth, which has operated a boys home in Cambridge Bay since 2014, is in the final stages of hiring and training workers for the the eight-bed Illagiitugut Girls Home. Nunavut's Department of Family Services temporarily suspended services at the facility in September after the contract with the former operator expired.

"We're bringing some trainers up to Iqaluit and we're going to run a week of staff training for the local staff," said Andrew Middleton, the CEO of East Coast-based Atlantic Youth.

He said that will likely happen in the first two weeks of June.

The Atlantic Youth model combines trained youth care staff, who will be flown in, with local community-based workers.

"We want to bring folks in who have a keen interest and a spirit for helping youth," Middleton said.

He said the learning goes both ways.

Local staff can gain intervention and professional skills, while fly-in staff can learn "what it's like living in the North and just being in the North and how we can relate to kids on a cultural level and a historical level."

The facility will take in girls from across the territory, so Middleton says Inuktitut- or Inuinnaqtun-speaking staff are very important.

The Department of Family Services declined to do an interview about the Illagiitugut Girls Home, but in a statement said there are still minor renovations underway.