Take a Hike Foundation

About Us

Every child needs access to a quality public education that gives them the opportunity to reach their full potential, but not everyone fits into the mainstream school system.

Take a Hike partners with public school districts to engage vulnerable youth in a full-time mental health and emotional well-being program embedded in an alternate education classroom.

Our mission is to empower vulnerable youth with the skills and resilience they need to graduate high school, build healthy relationships, navigate the challenges of young adulthood, and achieve success - however they define it. We do this by engaging youth in intensive and continuous clinical counselling, regular outdoor adventures, and supporting youth in a safe and caring community.

Over the past twenty years, Take a Hike has developed a proven, trauma-informed, evidence-based program model that has transformed the lives of hundreds of youth in B.C. along with their families.

At the heart of the successes we see in youth is a unique program community. Youth spend all day, every day with the same twenty youth and four staff members. The classroom quickly feels like a tight-knit family. The classroom is built on a foundation of safe and caring relationships, a safe, inclusive, and predictable environment, tailored supports and strategies aligned with attachment-based and trauma-informed approaches, continuous and intensive shared time and learning among staff and students, and high expectations for student success.