When a person has spent much of their life worrying about their safety, where they might sleep, how they will find enough to eat, etc. it has a significant negative impact on their ability to do well in school, learn new skills, and participate in developmental opportunities. This leaves a gap between youth in care or at risk of homelessness and their counterparts – a gap that money alone can’t bridge.
Thanks to the Victoria News for this fabulous article about the Supportive Recovery Program:
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Our exploration of the eight pillars of equitable support for youth aging out of care, as outlined in the Canadian Child Welfare League sponsored report “Equitable Standards for Transitions to Adulthood for Youth In Care”, starts at the deep end of the pool: financial support.
For the last several years, Threshold has focused in the spring on sharing the facts around youth aging out of government care on their 19th birthday. The late Katherine McParland, a leading youth housing advocate, once deemed aging out of care the “superhighway into homelessness” – a term that has proliferated. In the past three years, however, the government of BC has announced multiple funding and policy changes aimed at either creating off-ramps from that highway or relieving the housing crisis.