With the help of donors, the Inner City Youth program grew beyond what was traditionally considered “health.” The expanded program was created to fully support young people’s wellness. It looked at the whole person, not just providing health care, but also helping youth build relationships and connect to community, peers and resources.

Communities across BC joined forces to help BC-IYSI (now Foundry) grow. Through St.Paul’s Foundation, the “Conconi Campaign” launched with a goal of opening a new Foundry centre in every health region in BC. Every dollar raised was matched.

After sitting down with and listening to youth, families and centre communities, the BC Integrated Youth Services Initiative officially launched as “Foundry”.

Foundry continued to grow, opening centres in Abbotsford and Victoria.

Foundry launched a new way to connect online through foundrybc.ca. Led by BC Children’s Hospital’s Health Promotion and Health Literacy team, this platform brought together tools and resources from mindcheck.ca, a youth mental health project that began years earlier in Fraser Health. 

The foundrybc.ca website continues to be managed in partnership with BC Children’s Hospital and has expanded to include a wide range of topics to help young people live a good life.

When the pandemic began, Foundry quickly adapted to ensure young people were still supported. Even as new centres opened in Ridge Meadows, Terrace, and Richmond, the focus shifted to ensuring young people could still access help. Foundry launched province-wide virtual services to support young people and families during COVID-19 and to extend services to communities that did not have a centre and needed additional support.

With support from Health Canada, Foundry developed and shared its learnings and resources across the country to support other jurisdictions to launch integrated youth services.

Foundry introduced a Co-Executive Director structure, led by Dr. Steve Mathias and Dr. Karen Tee.

Foundry opened in Comox Valley, Langley, Cariboo Chilcotin (Williams Lake), and Richmond, and announced that the Foundry network would continue to expand, adding four new communities.

In May, Foundry East Kootenay opened as the first Indigenous-led Foundry centre. In July, Foundry expanded its Work & Education program to cover 18 centres, thanks to a $9 million provincial investment. The program provides integrated, personalized wraparound assistance to young people, including health, mentoring, education, skills development and job placement services.