Friends in Toronto Community Services
Our Mandate
Friends in Toronto Community Services (FITCS) is committed to strengthening communities and expanding access to justice, opportunity, and wellbeing for people impacted by poverty and systemic marginalization.
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Community Development & Capacity-Building
Strengthening community leadership, resilience, and collective capacity through education, engagement, and shared responsibility.
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Community Safety & Healing
Advancing restorative justice, healing-centred approaches, and community-based responses to harm that prioritize accountability, care, and restoration. -
Education, Culture, and Social Development
Providing educational, cultural, recreational, and social development programming for children, youth, adults, and families affected by poverty and exclusion. -
Youth Empowerment & Civic Engagement
Creating opportunities for youth leadership, empowerment, and meaningful participation in civic and community life.
Our Values
“We recognize that wellbeing and justice are inseparable from the balance of mind, body, and spirit. In honouring Indigenous ancestral teachings, collective responsibility, and each person’s sacred connection to the divine, we commit to healing practices that restore wholeness, dignity, and shared humanity.”
Possibility
We believe in the capacity of individuals and communities to overcome life’s challenges and create meaningful change when given equitable access to support and opportunity.
Diversity
We respond to the diversity of our communities with services and practices that recognize, respect, and honour identity, culture, and lived experience.
Quality
We are committed to excellence, accountability, and integrity in all programs, services, and partnerships.
Since 2005 at Parc Downsview Park
Founded in 2005, Friends in Toronto Community Services (FITCS) has maintained a long-standing presence in the Downsview area, beginning at 60 Carl Hall Road. Over two decades, this place-based commitment has shaped our understanding of how poverty, racism, and limited access to justice intersect to impact individuals, families, and communities.
From its earliest days, FITCS has worked to break cycles of poverty by supporting focused, involved, and transformed communities—centering dignity, participation, and long-term wellbeing.
20 Years of Youth Programming
FITCS advances programming and projects that support healing, restoration, reparations, and reconciliation through community-led, restorative justice practices.
Support Us
About Us
Who We Are
Friends in Toronto Community Services (FITCS) is a community-led organization advancing restorative justice, access to justice, and community healing for people and families impacted by poverty, systemic marginalization, and structural inequity.
For over two decades, FITCS has worked alongside youth, families, and communities navigating harm, conflict, and exclusion—supporting pathways toward accountability, healing, and dignity where traditional systems often fall short.
Our Mission
We have Faith
“To inspire and enable people to break the cycle of poverty.”
We have faith that justice must be accessible, humane, and rooted in community.
Many people impacted by poverty, racism, and social exclusion face barriers to justice—not because harm did not occur, but because systems are not designed to hear them, protect them, or repair harm meaningfully.
FITCS exists to help close that gap.
Our Focus
FITCS works at the intersection of justice, equity, and community wellbeing, with a focus on:
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Restorative Justice & Healing Practices: Supporting community-based, trauma-informed approaches that prioritize accountability, repair, and restoration over punishment.
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Access to Justice: Strengthening pathways for people impacted by poverty, racialization, and systemic barriers to engage with justice processes in ways that are fair, culturally responsive, and grounded in dignity.
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Community Advocacy & Voice: Supporting resident- and stakeholder-led advocacy efforts that elevate lived experience and collective action as drivers of change.
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Youth & Family Support: Working with youth and families navigating conflict, system involvement, and intergenerational harm through culturally grounded, healing-centred approaches.
Our Stand Against Racism
FITCS holds a clear and principled stance against racism, anti-Racialized racism, anti-Indigenous racism, and all forms of systemic discrimination.
Centering racialized and marginalized voices
Restorative justice, when practiced with integrity, is a powerful tool for confronting racism and advancing equity.Centering
Applying anti-oppressive and trauma-informed practices
Restorative justice, when practiced with integrity, is a powerful tool for confronting racism and advancing equity.Anti-Oppressive
Advocating for restorative, community-based alternatives
Restorative justice, when practiced with integrity, is a powerful tool for confronting racism and advancing equity.Advocating
Building accountability rooted in repair rather than exclusion
Restorative justice, when practiced with integrity, is a powerful tool for confronting racism and advancing equity.Accountability
Our Mantra
How We Work
FITCS does not impose solutions. We work with communities, supporting essential processes. Our role is to convene, facilitate, advocate, and support—ensuring that people most impacted by harm are not excluded from justice, healing, or decision-making.
Support Our Cause
Community-led
Our work is shaped by the voices and lived experiences of the people most impacted by harm, poverty, and systemic exclusion. FITCS supports community leadership and collective decision-making as essential to meaningful and lasting justice.
Culturally responsive
FITCS recognizes culture as a source of strength, identity, and healing. Our programs are designed to respect, reflect, and respond to the cultural realities of the communities we serve, ensuring approaches are relevant, respectful, and grounded in lived experience.
Trauma-informed
We acknowledge the impacts of trauma on individuals, families, and communities. FITCS applies trauma-informed practices that prioritize safety, choice, dignity, and emotional wellbeing across all aspects of our work.
Grounded in accountability and care
We believe accountability and care must exist together for justice to be meaningful. FITCS supports approaches that recognize harm, encourage responsibility, and promote repair while centering compassion, healing, and long-term wellbeing.
Our Commitment
We are committed to a vision of justice that:
Recognizes harm and responsibility
Centres healing and restoration
Resists racism and systemic exclusion
Strengthens communities rather than fragmenting them
For FITCS, justice is not only a legal outcome—it is a collective practice rooted in humanity, equity, and care.
“FITCS works to ensure that justice is not reserved for the few, but accessible to the many—especially those most often left out—through restorative justice, community-led healing, and accountable pathways toward repair and dignity.”
Community is Unwavering
Freinds in Toronto Community Services
Peace.
Community-led nonprofit advancing restorative justice, healing, and access to opportunity. Supporting youth, families, and communities impacted by poverty and systemic inequity across Gta and Ontario.
- 647-531-3106
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40 Carl Hall Rd. D035
Parc Downsview Park - Mon-Fri 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
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