Preparing young people in Canada for emancipation from child welfare care

Abstract

Reviewing preparation-for-independence programs operating in Canada at present yields a number of observations. 1. A well-developed range of preparation-for-independence programs exists across Canada despite regional differences in both mandate and resources. 2. The resources, however, do not meet the need. There are not enough for each young person to be assured of getting what he or she needs for a successful transition. 3. Failure to develop an adequate resource will be costly in the long run. Those whom child welfare, in its parenting role, fails to prepare for independence and support adequately during the transition will most likely come to the attention of social services again either as social assistance recipients before adult welfare, or as parents and families requiring the services of the child welfare system within which they themselves grew up. 4. At the field level, effective solutions have been demonstrated. What remains to be achieved is the development of both political will and financial commitment on the part of the government to support the maintenance of existing programs, and the proliferation of an adequate range of additional programs. It must be ensured that all children for whom the state assumes responsibility benefit from an adequately supported transition into productive adulthood. As pointed out in a literacy program proposal prepared by the Pape Adolescent Resource Centre in Toronto: Unless the problems were addressed effectively, the probability was that the teens would be discharged from children's aid society care without the ability to support themselves in the community either economically or practically. In the absence of familial or institutional supports, a street life awaited them. Many had begun to apprentice for that reality. [Martin 1986: 2] Where the state has intervened to rescue a youth from inadequate parenting, the obligation exists for the state to properly complete the undertaking.