If one could create an educational utopia for struggling teenagers, what would it look like?

Do it in nature. Use an experiential curriculum that is impossible to resist. Provide round-the-clock mental health support. Be a place where staff reveal their humanity so youth can reveal theirs.

This is what we are trying to do at Boundless. Indeed, some days, it really does feel like a utopia. 

But a clumsy utopia. 

Things can get messy up here in the Madawaska Valley, a place where we have turned our 600 pristine acres into a classroom that heals as much as it teaches.

Our students bring a lot of baggage. Severe anxiety. Depression. Formidable learning challenges. Youth must often re-learn to socialize and how to look up from their screens.

At Boundless, we are trying to help these young people get their full diplomas, but even more importantly, belong to a loving community where they feel an obligation to support others, and get their groove back in doing so.

- Indigenous youth

- Newcomers and refugees

- We work in close connection with  Adolescent Anxiety Clinics and Children's Mental Health Centres 

- We support youth and adults with Traumatic Brain Injuries and other neurological challenges 

- developing programs for young adults

- and now, beginning our second year, build the support structures of youth by focussing on families

- We recently studied the impact Boundless had on youth two years after they left our program. In short, most were back at school, almost all found and maintained employment, and the vast majority reported as being more closely connected to their families and communities. Compared to peer groups, these outcomes were outstanding. 

- We have been ranked as among Canada's (and Toronto's for that matter) Top Ten Charities for six years in a row