Youth Development Worker

Join Our Team at Whytecliff Agile Learning Centres

Are you passionate about working with teens and ready for a youth-work role with more depth, creativity, and potential for growth?

Whytecliff Agile Learning Centres (walc.ca) in Burnaby, BC is looking for a dedicated and experienced Youth Development Worker to join our Langley team. This is your chance to be part of a supportive, close-knit community helping students grow, thrive, and discover their potential in a unique and innovative school setting.

This is active, school-based youth work with real variety. You’ll be mentoring students, leading wellness activities, building hands-on projects around student interests, planning field trips, supporting learning, and helping students experience themselves as capable, connected, and genuinely valued — often in the ordinary moments that matter most.

About Whytecliff

Whytecliff is unique in BC: we are an independent school that is also CARF-accredited as a therapeutic Positive Youth Development program.

At our Burnaby campus, we work with approximately 30–40 students in grades 8–12, all with IEPs. Many have struggled in traditional school settings and may be navigating anxiety, ADHD, ASD, school avoidance, social or emotional challenges, low confidence, learning differences, or a history of feeling that school has not worked for them.

That is why our mission is different and our work is so important. Our goal is bigger than just helping kids achieve graduation. Our goal is to help students experience school as a place where they can belong, contribute, discover their gifts, strengths and talents, build real skills, and reach their true potential.

We offer a whole-person approach that blends academics with Positive Youth Development, outdoor education, project-based learning, mental wellness, social-emotional growth, and real-world skill building.

Physical activity, wellness, and hands-on learning are key parts of our program. We have a full gym across the street that we use regularly for structured activity, team challenges, confidence-building, regulation, and health-focused programming.

Want to see more of the great work we do?

Who We’re Looking For

We’re seeking an energetic, grounded, and adaptable person who can lead from the front — whether that means running a gym session, organizing a team challenge, helping a student turn an interest into a real project, joining a field trip, or offering calm, steady mentorship to a young person who needs guidance.

You have real hands-on youth work experience, ideally with adolescents in alternative education, special education, youth programs, coaching, outdoor education, camp leadership, or another setting where you’ve learned how to build trust with young people.

You understand Positive Youth Development not just as a buzzword, but as a way of working with youth: seeing strengths, building belonging, creating challenge, supporting growth, and helping students take the next step.

You’re likely a strong fit if you are:

• A natural mentor and role model – You build real trust with young people and lead with consistency, humour, patience, and genuine interest.
• Active and confident with groups – You can run a gym session, lead a team challenge, manage group energy, and help students work through frustration, teamwork, and success.
• Creative and hands-on – You can turn student interests into something real: a fitness challenge, a photography project, a podcast, a simple website, a video, a hands-on build, an outdoor activity, or a presentation students can feel proud of.
• Comfortable with different kinds of kids – You can connect with the active kid, the anxious kid, the quiet kid, the tech kid, the funny kid, the guarded kid, and the kid who has mostly given up on school.
• Curious about what makes youth grow – You think about motivation, identity, confidence, belonging, and what helps a young person take the next step.
• Practical and proactive – You notice what needs doing, step in without waiting to be asked, and follow through on the details that keep the day working.
• A strong teammate – You enjoy working closely with teachers, counsellors, youth workers, families, and program leadership in a small, connected school community.

We are especially interested in candidates with substantial hands-on youth work experience — people who have led groups, built trust with hard-to-reach teens, supported students through rough moments, and helped activities become meaningful.

Strong emerging candidates are also encouraged to apply if they bring maturity, good judgement, initiative, and real leadership potential.

Backgrounds that often work well include child and youth care, education assistance, coaching, outdoor education, camp leadership, counselling-related work, recreation therapy, or project-based learning facilitation.

What You’ll Be Doing

This role blends youth mentorship, wellness leadership, learning support, project support, field trips, transportation, and Positive Youth Development.

You’ll support students in both structured and spontaneous ways — building relationships, helping students stay engaged in learning, planning hands-on activities, supporting projects, and helping students tap into their strengths, interests, energy, and sense of belonging.

Key responsibilities include:

• Mentoring students throughout the day – Building trust in the classroom, gym, van, on field trips, during projects, and in the small moments where students need a steady adult beside them.
• Leading active wellness programming – Running or co-leading gym sessions, team challenges, fitness activities, outdoor activities, and movement-based experiences that build confidence, regulation, teamwork, and well-being.
• Supporting students one-to-one and in small groups – Helping students get organized, get started, solve problems, follow through, build confidence, and reconnect with learning after a hard moment.
• Bringing student interests to life – Helping design and run projects around digital media, photography, simple websites, podcasts, presentations, portfolios, fitness challenges, outdoor activities, hands-on builds, or other creative work students actually care about.
• Supporting technology and digital projects – Helping students use technology in practical, creative, and appropriate ways, from project research and presentations to media, portfolios, websites, and documentation.
• Planning and supporting field trips and off-site learning – Helping create outings that build real-world skills, confidence, independence, teamwork, and a stronger sense of belonging.
• Supporting social-emotional growth in everyday moments – Helping students build self-awareness, confidence, communication, regulation, problem-solving, friendship skills, and resilience through real relationships, meaningful activities, restorative conversations, and the ordinary ups and downs of the school day.
• Driving students – Supporting pickups, drop-offs, field trips, and community outings as part of the program’s real-world learning and relationship-building.
• Supporting classroom and program routines – Helping the day run smoothly, keeping students engaged, and contributing to a positive, purposeful school culture.
• Collaborating with the team – Sharing useful observations and working closely with teachers, counsellors, youth workers, families, and leadership so students receive consistent support.
• Completing documentation and follow-up – Keeping attendance notes, forms, observations, and follow-up tasks accurate and on time so the team can stay coordinated.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required. Master’s preferred.
• Relevant fields may include child and youth care, education, psychology, social work, counselling, kinesiology, outdoor education, youth leadership, recreation, human services, or a closely related field.
• Valid Class 5 driver’s licence required. Class 4 preferred.
• Clean driver’s abstract and criminal record check required.
• Demonstrated experience supporting adolescents, neurodiverse youth, alternative learners, or youth with mental-health, behavioural, social-emotional, or learning challenges is a strong asset.

Why Join Us?

• Work in a setting that truly changes lives in a small, values-driven school community.
• A supportive, close-knit team that values connection, collaboration, and ongoing growth.
• A unique program where relationships, wellness, learning, and Positive Youth Development are genuinely connected.
• Opportunities to help shape wellness activities, field trips, projects, and student engagement.
• Flexible summer options — potential to have summers off.
• Extended health, dental, vision, paid time off, RRSP matching, bonus pay, and casual dress.

Location: Burnaby, BC

Work location: In person

Job type: Full-time

Schedule: 8-hour shifts

No phone inquiries or offshore applications, please.