A Year or a Career

Hundreds of people come to L’Arche communities each year to learn, to grow, and to have an extraordinary life-changing experience. Most make an initial commitment of one year. Many Assistants will choose to stay at L’Arche for several years, and some for their entire career.

A year at L’Arche:

In your first year at L’Arche, you will develop friendships, learn the importance of community, develop skills to support Core Members (persons with intellectual disabilities), and grow as a leader and as a person.

Life in L’Arche is both new and familiar—you’ll meet new friends among an amazingly diverse set of people. At the same time, you’ll find that sharing your life and time together will be familiar, like being together with family and friends.

Learning how you can contribute to L’Arche in a positive way will be a challenging and a true growth experience with opportunities to take on more responsibility and leadership.

A career at L’Arche:

Through living and working together in our communities, L’Arche engages Assistants to build and shape a more hopeful and human society.

While many Assistants come to experience L’Arche for one year, we are looking for dedicated and passionate people to commit and move into the various leadership positions in our communities.

There are more than 120 leadership positions in L’Arche Canada. Our leadership positions include House or Program Leaders, Human Resource Leaders, Homes Coordinators, Health Care Coordinators, Financial Managers, and Community Leaders. Most people in these leadership roles started their careers as house Assistants, decided that L’Arche was a good fit for them, and continued to grow and contribute to L’Arche in new ways over time.

Assistants come to L’Arche from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Experience with caregiving or training as a Personal Support Worker is beneficial, but not mandatory for hiring in most locations.