COH-AWH-What_Would_it_Take

MOVING FORWARD
National data has shown that youth who are homeless are 193
times more likely to have been involved with child welfare than the
general public (Nichols et al., 2017).
Youth that face systemic and structural disadvantages (e.g., poverty, racism, homophobia)
are more likely to experience both child welfare involvement and homelessness (Gypen
et al., 2017), indicating that many ministries and systems have a role to play in improving
young people’s experiences before, during, and after care. Indigenous youth are particularly
overrepresented in the child welfare system in Canada (Blackstock et al., 2004; Statistics
Canada, 2011), indicating a particular need to address the intersections between colonialism
and child welfare. Despite regional and provincial/territorial differences in policy and service
provision, we know that youth in – and leaving – state care in Canada disproportionately
experience negative outcomes in many life domains, including health, housing, education,
and employment (Barker et al., 2014). This study further demonstrates the need to break the
link between child welfare and youth homelessness.
A crucial finding of this study is the frequency with which young people felt
that child welfare workers failed to protect them from abuse and neglect, or
contributed to their experiences of isolation and marginalization.
In order to effectively prevent youth homelessness, we need to better understand the forces
that are shaping child welfare workers’ responses to abuse. These dynamics may be driven by
inadequate funding, unmanageable caseloads, poor training and supervision, or policies over
which they have little control. While this study suggests that some frontline child welfare workers
would benefit from training in anti-oppression and solutions- and equity-oriented practice, it is
also essential that workers can actually offer youth resources that would really make a difference:
free family counselling and mediation, safe youth housing, livable social assistance rates for
families, an After Care Guarantee, or foster homes within a young person’s community and
culture. If we want to use the child welfare system as a tool for youth homelessness prevention,
we need to ensure we are simultaneously making changes in these other systems as well.
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE? 80