Work alongside kids and teens in group homes, schools and hospitals who have been through trauma. A college diploma, and the job starts on day one of placement.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $54,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $40,000 at the lower end to about $75,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
3 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$400 to $40,800 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$54,000
Lower end
$40,000
Upper end
$75,000
Job Bank's national median is $26 an hour, about $54,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower and upper ends are Job Bank's low and high wages for everyone in the group, $19 and $36.06 an hour. Job Bank pools child and youth workers with other social and community service workers, so this is a broad figure. Alberta's 2023 wage survey puts the average for the same pooled group at $25.52 an hour.
$35.00 an hour
The median in Nunavut for the pooled group, the highest in Canada
Among the provinces, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island are highest at $27.00, Ontario sits at $26.50 and Manitoba is lowest at $21.00. Many first jobs are part-time or relief shifts in group homes and youth shelters.
Roughly, all in
$400 to $40,800
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is the police check, first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation training and crisis intervention training that group homes and shelters ask for, then getting hired on relief shifts and learning the work on the job. That is a real paid route in. The high end is a four year university degree plus those same clearances and the voluntary certification exam. The cheap door is harder and it has a ceiling: school boards, hospitals and supervisor jobs want the three year college diploma, so without it you can sit in front line residential work for years with no way up.
Placements are unpaid and take up a big share of the final year. Many students work relief shifts at a group home to get paid while they train.
Pension and benefits in the public sector
School boards, hospitals and youth justice facilities are unionized with a defined-benefit pension.
Shift premiums
Group homes run 24 hours. Overnights, weekends and holidays pay extra.
Overtime
Chronic short-staffing means overtime is usually available if you want it.
Ten-month schedules
School board jobs follow the school year, with summers off.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A college diploma is the standard route. A degree helps for hospital, school and supervisor jobs.
High school
Grade 12
Grade 12 English is the usual requirement. Volunteer with kids: camps, coaching, tutoring, youth drop-ins.
College diploma
2 to 3 years
In Ontario the Child and Youth Care program is a 3-year advanced diploma. Other provinces run 2-year diplomas. Expect courses in child development, trauma, counselling and crisis intervention.
Field placements
Built into the program
Two or three unpaid placements in group homes, schools or hospitals. This is where most people get their first job offer.
Degree, if you want it
2 more years
Diploma grads can bridge into year three of the 4-year Child and Youth Care degree at TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University) or similar programs in other provinces.
Voluntary certification
After a few years of work
Register with your provincial association, such as the OACYC (Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care), or certify through the CYCCB (Child and Youth Care Certification Board), which needs a portfolio and a test.
English
You write daily logs and incident reports.
Psychology, sociology or family studies
The theory of the job.
Physical education or coaching
A lot of the work is activity based.
Drama, music or art
Programs for kids need someone who can run them.
No province licenses child and youth workers, and anyone can use the title. Employers set their own bar, and most want the diploma plus a clean vulnerable sector police check. The OACYC (Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care) runs voluntary registration and has been lobbying for regulation. Alberta has a similar voluntary certification through its provincial association.
Quebec has no child and youth worker diploma. The same work is done by éducateurs spécialisés (special educators), trained in a 3 year CEGEP (public college) program.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
The program has no specific high school course requirements, only the general CEGEP (public college) admission rules. Volunteer work with children or people with special needs helps your application.
Special Education Techniques DEC (Diploma of College Studies), 351.A1
3 years
Techniques d'éducation spécialisée in French. 3 years and 2,745 hours, offered at more than 35 colleges. In English at Vanier College and the private LaSalle College.
Supervised internships
During the program
Vanier's program has 3 supervised placements, in settings such as schools, shelters, group homes and rehabilitation centres. You need a police check before the first one.
Get hired as a special educator
After graduating
Schools, group homes, shelters, hospitals and community groups hire graduates. Employers ask for the DEC (Diploma of College Studies), and no licence is needed.
Special educators do not belong to a professional order. Psychoeducators do. Only members of the Ordre des psychoéducateurs et psychoéducatrices du Québec (the Quebec order of psychoeducators) can use that title, and the order requires a master's degree in psychoeducation. The qualifying programs are at Université de Montréal, Sherbrooke, Laval and three Université du Québec campuses, all in French. Many special educators who want more responsibility take this route later.
Quebec government figures for special educators and instructors of people with disabilities, the group these jobs fall under.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Crisis intervention and de-escalation
Courses such as nonviolent crisis intervention or therapeutic crisis intervention. Most employers require one.
Autism and developmental disability training
Applied behaviour analysis basics make you hireable in more settings.
Degree in child and youth care or social work
Needed for most hospital, supervisor and clinical roles.
Youth justice
Provincial youth custody facilities train on the job.
A driver's licence
Group homes drive kids to school, appointments and court.
A second language
Especially in big cities and in Indigenous communities.
Camp or coaching experience
Proof you can run a room of kids.
Mental health first aid
Short course, widely recognized.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In a group home: wake the kids, breakfast, get everyone to school. Afternoon meetings with social workers and teachers, then homework, dinner, chores, a house activity, bedtime. Somewhere in there a fight, a runaway or a meltdown that you have to de-escalate, then write up. In a school you are attached to a classroom or a behaviour program, helping kids who cannot get through the day without support.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Ontario's Child and Youth Care program is a 3-year advanced diploma, while most provinces run 2-year diplomas. The extra year is mostly placement, which is why Ontario grads can bridge straight into the third year of a university degree.
Child and youth care is not just about kids. TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University) describes its degree as serving young people aged 4 to 29, and many practitioners work with young adults leaving foster care, shelters and justice systems.
Many child and youth workers get their first job from a placement. A student who shows up reliable for a semester often walks out with an offer.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Mental health first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.