She earned her bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the Faculty of Sciences at the State University of Haiti (UEH).
She moved to Canada in 2006 to pursue her master's degree at École de Technologie Supérieure after spending more than a decade working on Canadian aid projects in Port-au-Prince.
[2] At the time of her appointment to the Senate she was also chair of the board of directors of the Bureau de la communauté haïtienne (Haitian Community Office) in Montreal.
Until 2003, Youance hosted two programs on sustainable development and engineering on Savoir Média, an educational television channel in Quebec.
[3] In 2006, Youance was awarded the Casimir Gzowski Gold Medal from the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering for her work on the effect of earthquakes on hospital buildings.