08/26/2026
Statement from the Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care
It is with deep sadness that the Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care shares news of the passing of Jack Phelan, a foundational figure in child and youth care and a prolific voice that shaped the profession we practise today.
Jack began his journey in community youth work in 1967 in New York City, moving into a neighbourhood that called him toward this work. Over the next fifteen years, he held a variety of child and youth care positions across the USA and Canada before joining MacEwan University in Alberta, where he taught for more than twenty-five years before retiring as Faculty Emeritus. His commitment to the field never wavered. He was a humble and generous soul, authentic in his presence, and possessed a warmth and humorous spirit that drew people toward him. Those who knew him speak of his genuine belief in the people around him and his gift for inviting others into meaningful conversation about the craft and soul of our work.
Jack’s intellectual legacy is substantial. He wrote over 200 articles for C*C-Online and authored four foundational books that continue to guide practitioners across North America, Europe, and South Africa: Aspects of Relational Practice, Child and Youth Care: The Long and the Short of It, Activity Matters: Using Activities to Build Connections in Child and Youth Care, and Intentional C*C Supervision: A Developmental Approach. His seminal work on the developmental stages of practitioners, on supervision as a form of care rather than mere management, and on the integration of relational dynamics in practice provided generations of students with a roadmap for moving beyond reactive responses toward intentional, therapeutic engagement. Throughout his scholarship, Jack centered a principle that defined his career: the well-being of the practitioner is inseparable from the quality of care young people receive.
We recognize that we do not have the privilege of these figures with us forever. And yet their ideas remain, woven into the fabric of how we think about and practise child and youth care. Jack’s life work was an argument for particular commitments: that supervision is care, that practitioners deserve support for their own growth and well-being, that relationships are the foundation of meaningful change, that presence and authentic connection matter more than technique, that play and activity build the bridges we need with young people. He demonstrated through his scholarship and his presence that these commitments are not luxuries but necessities in work of this complexity.
His legacy lives on in the practitioners who apply his frameworks, in the supervisors who understand their role as developmental and caring, in the educators who teach his thought, in the communities where people gather to learn from his work and from one another. His seeds continue to grow in every moment we choose relational practice over mere procedure, in every decision to attend to the development of those doing this work, in every commitment to show up with presence and authenticity for the young people in our care.
He was one of ours. He shaped us. And his work remains as urgent now as it ever was.
May he rest in peace.
In community,
Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care
Listen to Jack on the C*C Podcast here: http://www.cycpodcast.org/e/avoiding-bad-child-and-youth-care-practice-a-conversation-with-jack-phelan-1430240438/
