Last December, Jeffrey Ekenkwo (pictured above, centre) joined YSM as Director of Cornerstone Family Services, a YSM program area which served about 1,705 parents and children last year through our daycare, computer lab and family education programs, care management and more.
Q: What brought you to YSM?
A: My journey to YSM was driven by a deep commitment to serve vulnerable families and communities. YSM’s mission is about breaking the cycle of long-term poverty through a holistic, faith-driven approach to transformation. This resonates with my core values and professional experience. Throughout my career, from my beginnings in Lagos, Nigeria, to my recent work in Toronto, I have been passionate about developing programs and initiatives that empower individuals to thrive, and that passion brought me here.
Q: What is the core focus of your work at YSM?
A: I am most involved in leading Cornerstone’s integrated support programs for families, as well as collaborative projects with community partners. My focus is to ensure our services are tailored to the unique needs of each family, helping them access resources, build resilience, and achieve sustainable change. For instance, in our access program, YSM hosts supervised court-ordered access visits between parents and children involved with the care system. We have a very welcoming space where we provide that community-based support for the visits.
Q: What do you think makes YSM unique?
A: Having worked in both Nigeria and Canada, I have noticed quite a number of features. What strikes me about YSM is its unwavering commitment to innovation and collaboration. How we tend to be deliberate about collaboration, and we are innovative even about our collaboration.
Secondly, YSM’s unique RISE model of care and its focus on measuring impact through special tools like TIMES™ set it apart, ensuring that every initiative is both evidence-based and deeply relational.
Furthermore, the organization’s integration of faith, accountability, and celebration into daily practice creates a culture where staff and community members are empowered to co-create solutions and celebrate progress together. This holistic, strengths-based approach is both inspiring and effective in driving real, lasting change.
Q: What about this work feels most meaningful to you?
A: What’s most important for me is putting a smile on the next person’s face, those who have not experienced a true genuine smile for a time. I have experienced various moments where families, initially overwhelmed with crisis, gradually regain hope and stability through our coordinated care. At YSM, I’ve seen parents overcome significant barriers like mental health challenges and financial instability. When provided with wrap-around support, they regained themselves. I’ve experienced reunification, where a child who had been mandated by the court to go into care was reunified with their parent. Through our interventions, we have been able to help families break the cycle of hardship. And that impacts the children. If the family is well stabilized, then the children are well stabilized. At YSM, it’s a relational approach, which is both inspiring and effective in driving real and lasting change.
This story originally appeared in our summer 2025 Urban Lights.