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THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

EVIDENCE

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OTTAWA, Monday, October 28, 2024

The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 5 p.m. [ET] to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally.

Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Deputy Chair) in the chair.

[English]

The Deputy Chair: Honourable colleagues, I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabeg Algonquin Nation, and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples from across Turtle Island.

I am Wanda Thomas Bernard, senator from Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaq territory, and deputy chair of this committee. In the absence of the chair, I will be chairing the first panel tonight.

I now invite my honourable colleagues to introduce themselves.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba from Quebec.

[English]

Senator Arnot: Senator David Arnot from Saskatchewan.

Senator Simons: Paula Simons from Alberta, and I come from Treaty 6 territory.

Senator Robinson: Good evening. Thanks for joining. I’m Mary Robinson from Prince Edward Island.

The Deputy Chair: Welcome, senators, and welcome to all of those who are following our deliberations.

Today, our committee will continue its study on aging out of foster care under its general order of reference. This afternoon, we shall have two panels. In each panel, we shall hear from witnesses and then the senators around the table will have a question-and-answer session.

I will now introduce our first panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make a five-minute opening statement. With us today via video conference, please welcome Barbara Fallon, Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare, University of Toronto; and Ashley Vandermorris, Staff Paediatrician, Division of Adolescent Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children; and also via video conference, from the Child Welfare Political Action Committee, please welcome Ingrid Palmer, Board Chair.

I now invite Ms. Fallon and Ms. Vandermorris to make their presentation, followed by Ms. Palmer. I understand that Ms. Fallon and Ms. Vandermorris will share the opening remarks time. Thank you.

Barbara Fallon, Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare, University of Toronto, as an individual: Thank you very much, senator. And thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and for studying this very important issue of foster care and the challenges of aging out of foster care.

I’m here today in my capacity as an academic in the social sciences who has spent the last 25 years researching the needs and trajectories of children and families who are identified to the child welfare system, hoping to develop an evidence base for improvements to both policy and practice.

Ashley Vandermorris, Staff Paediatrician, Division of Adolescent Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, as an individual: I am joining Dr. Fallon in my capacity as Staff Paediatrician in Adolescent Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where my work focuses on youth confronting intersecting structural vulnerabilities. I also serve on the board of directors of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children.

Together with Dr. Fallon, we co-lead the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development Policy Bench, which brings together leaders with transdisciplinary expertise at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children to synthesize, create and disseminate knowledge on various topics relevant to child health development and well-being.

Ms. Fallon: In 2020, the policy bench was commissioned by the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services to produce a literature review on the process of aging out of foster care, with a focus on policies and programs that might improve outcomes for children and youth. We’ll highlight some of the report’s findings and conclusions. I want to emphasize that child rights and equity are essential to the developments of policies, programs and services for children and youth in out-of-home care.

We know that children and youth who grow up in care do not come from an equal starting point compared to their peers. They face greater challenges and poorer life outcomes, including educational attainment, difficulty finding employment, housing instability, among others. Yet children in foster care do have an equal right to access the supports they need to thrive and succeed. This is even more important during the critical period in which they transition into adulthood.

In recognition of the need for greater assistance during the transition process out of care, many governments across Canada and around the world have adopted policies and practices that provide additional supports or an extension of supports to youth who reach the age of majority. These include financial, educational, employment, housing, independent living programs, life skills and mentorship programs. However, policies and supports vary widely across provinces and territories.

Canada does not have a national standard or guidelines for youth leaving care, putting Canadian youth in care at greater risk of falling further behind their peers across a range of outcomes with very little research on culturally informed, evidence-based interventions.

Dr. Vandermorris: One of the issues with existing policies on aging out is that each province and territory uses a framework based on a specific age indicator. This means that access to supports and services for youth leaving care is based on legislated age cut-offs regardless of the individual’s developmental readiness and financial or emotional ability to make the transition to independence. However, we know that many young people are now taking longer to become independent, often relying on their parents, family and community well into their twenties, a period known as “emerging adulthood.”

The process of transitioning supports for youth leaving foster care should also be more gradual and flexible rather than being tied to each parameter that may no longer be appropriate based on scientific evidence. Recent advances in neuroscience have shown that adolescent brain development is not a linear process and that there is no universal definitive age at which the adolescent brain is fully developed.

An alternative approach recommended by many of the experts you have heard from in this committee is to replace this age‑based system with a readiness-based system. A readiness-based approach to leaving care recognizes that the needs of youth in care do not end when they reach the age of majority and provides continued support to youth who do not yet possess the skills and abilities to live independently. In contrast to the prevailing umbrella approach to policies on aging out, which treat all youth in care as a homogenous group, this type of approach is more adaptable to the unique needs and experiences of those transitioning out of care and allows the youth themselves to determine their own level of readiness to leave the child protection system.

A more flexible approach to aging out that is not based on specific age cut-offs would be more developmentally appropriate based on what is currently known about the normative patterns of brain development that are unique to the period of adolescence. As an example, research shows that the adolescent brain is highly adaptable and responsive to experiences and changes in the environment, making this a key time to provide youth with the resources that will allow them to learn and develop in positive and healthy ways.

This would also account for the diversity of lived experiences among youth in care, including those with mental health issues, pregnant youth, 2SLGBTQIA youth, youth with disabilities, Indigenous youth and racialized youth.

Ms. Fallon: U.S. studies have shown that extending foster care supports past the age of 18 is associated with a number of benefits, particularly in terms of educational outcomes. Cost-benefit analyses from both the U.S. and Canada have also demonstrated that the benefits of increasing supports for youth in foster care to a later age would outweigh the cost of implementing new policy.

In addition, many researchers call for a more holistic approach to aging out of care, which involves addressing social and emotional needs of youth, helping them to develop their independent living skills. Research suggests that supportive relationships and mentorship programs are really key components of a successful transition out of care. Such relationships also have positive neurodevelopmental impacts that can promote pro-social engagement in society across a life course.

In summary, existing policies in Canada have not been effective to date as youth who grow up in foster care continue to confront challenges and hardships both during the transition to independence and afterwards as young adults and beyond. Improved services and supports are needed to help youth successfully navigate this process, promoting more positive trajectories into adulthood. Emerging evidence indicates that extending supports for youth until they are developmentally ready may indeed result in better outcomes for both youth themselves and Canadian society as a whole.

With that, we will wrap up our comments. Thank you for your time, and of course, we would welcome any questions or comments.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you, both. We will now hear from Ms. Palmer.

Ingrid Palmer, Board Chair, Child Welfare Political Action Committee: Good evening and thank you so much for the opportunity to engage with you this evening on this topic.

My name is Ingrid Palmer and I entered the child welfare system in Ontario due to mental, physical and sexual abuse. At 14, I was diagnosed with a rare degenerative eye disorder at SickKids Hospital that led me to lose the majority of my vision.

At 16, I was further diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a condition that involves hormone imbalances that led to me growing a beard as a female.

Besides the stigma of being in care, anti-Black racism, misogyny and ableism, being perceived as transgendered multiplied the discrimination I already faced and increased challenges and deepened the exclusion and inequity that I faced.

I worked part-time and went to school, completing Grade 13, then going on to achieve two college diplomas and a bachelor’s degree from York University. But it wasn’t easy and many times I almost gave up. I lived precariously, in poverty. I was legally blind, homeless several times, and I was denied service and opportunities, publicly spat at, called names, threatened and even once assaulted. Like many others who aged out of the care system, I felt alone and vulnerable in an ominous, predatory world.

Today, I work full-time and am proud to also serve as the Board Chair of the Child Welfare Political Action Committee. I was one of the founding members when it first began seven years ago.

I believe passionately in our mission to support the amelioration of the life experiences and outcomes for youth from care across the country, and doing this by increasing the uptake to post-secondary education and the trades to build successful and economically sound careers for youth who have aged out of care as a means of providing stability and the promise of a better life to this demographic that has traditionally been bereft of well‑being throughout most of their lives.

Since 2019, the political action committee has been successful in negotiating approximately 640 tuition-free spots with no age limit or restrictions in colleges and universities with approximately 50 partners in eight provinces.

In April 2023, the Child Welfare Political Action Committee embarked on a Pathways to Apprenticeships program, which we call Trades Ready Youth, or TRY, which opens a new opportunity to well-paying jobs for those who have been in care. This program is funded by the provincial government. We believe that access to higher education and specialized skills training is the way to level the playing field and to improve the quality of life and outcomes for youth from care.

It’s important that the government and organizations that support youth use an intersectional lens in considering their circumstances and the barriers that youth from care face. We don’t talk often enough about the intersections of youth from care.

All youth, regardless of identity, face tremendous barriers and challenges when aging out of the system. However, racialized, non-binary, trans youth, youth living with disabilities and others who identify with multiple stigmatized identities face increased risk, increased adversity and need additional supports to rise above the multi-layered adversities that they face.

It is really important that we recognize that pathways to higher education and specialized skills provide youth from care the best opportunity to improve their lives and to have a better — to their circumstances than many have experienced during the beginning.

We know that the uptake in education for youth from care has remained low at around 8% for over 40 years. The Child Welfare Political Action Committee is committed to making a difference in this area and using pathways to higher education and opportunities to learn specific skills in the trades as ways to support youth from care to make better outcomes for themselves. Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Palmer. We have a list of speakers, but before we start with the list, I’m going to exercise the right of first question as the deputy chair and chair for this evening.

Ms. Palmer, could you tell us which of the eight provinces your political action committee program has on board? Are you able to tell us?

Ms. Palmer: We have British Columbia, Ontario and provinces in the Atlantic.

The Deputy Chair: Do you know which ones? I may have a special interest.

Ms. Palmer: I don’t have the list here in front of me, but I can try to access that.

The Deputy Chair: If you would send that to us, that would be great.

Ms. Palmer: I can do that.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you. We’ll go to the senators who put their names on the list, starting with Senator Arnot.

Senator Arnot: I have questions for each of the three witnesses.

Professor Fallon, your research highlights the overrepresentation of racialized and Indigenous children in foster care. I wonder, given your experience and some of the comparative research you have done on child protection systems, what can Canada learn from other jurisdictions that have managed smoother transition for youth aging out of care? Where are the best practices and what are the indices of those best practices?

The Deputy Chair: Let us stop there, hear the answer, then we will come back for your second question.

Senator Arnot: Yes.

Ms. Fallon: Thank you for the question.

Certainly to Ms. Palmer’s point, the intersectionality of youth identity is one we need to pay attention to. We have some estimates I would say about the number of Indigenous children today in care, which is about half those of all in Canada. We have a great deal of difficulty with other identity-based data collection to note.

The question is: Are there panaceas or promising practices that we can draw on? Certainly, there are. In our policy brief, there were a number that were identified. A country like Australia has similar data where the children aging out of care have similar sorts of barriers with respect to education, access to good social supports and employment.

The tenets of the programs that work — not necessarily the countries because part of our recommendations is there is a fragmented approach that is not developmentally based — are ones that wrap around the youth, are appropriate for the needs they identify and are culturally appropriate.

Essentially, as we all do with our children, we scaffold them until the youth merges into young adult without the need to be scaffolded.

Senator Arnot: Ms. Vandermorris, given your experience working at the transgender youth clinic — and within interdisciplinary teams — what role, or perhaps new roles, can health care providers play in facilitating smoother transitions for youth moving out of care?

Dr. Vandermorris: Thank you for the question.

I’ll draw on my clinical experience both in working with transgender youth and their families and in working with parenting adolescents and their families.

You have identified a key opportunity. We know health, particularly mental health, outcomes for children and youth who have been involved in care are underresearched domains and areas where there is opportunity for improvement.

To date, the health sector can, at times, remain parsed away from other sectors, as Dr. Fallon has alluded to. We know best practices in supporting youth must be holistic, integrated and responsive to their identified needs.

Often, health care providers have a privileged opportunity in relationship with their patients to learn about the full context of that young person’s health and well-being and has the opportunity to apply their privilege to advocate for access to services that may best be tailored to the needs of that individual youth.

There is an opportunity to provide health care providers with training and ask them to step up to the charge of recognizing their role and the responsibilities to serve the health and wellness of their patients, not simply within the confines of the office or the hospital but across the broader places and environments in which young people and their families live.

There is an immense opportunity to, as Dr. Fallon said, scaffold young people and work collaboratively across sectors to bring all of the relevant stakeholders together to learn from the young person, their own expertise and lived experience to help support them in reaching the services, programs and supports they have identified as critical to their ultimate developmental success.

Senator Arnot: Ms. Palmer, drawing from your lived experience and advocacy work, what changes would you advocate to address the unique challenges of intersectional identities you spoke of?

Second, you emphasized the importance of community support in fostering inclusion. In your view, what are the most effective strategies that child welfare systems should be using and adopting to build sustainable, long-term support networks for youth post-care?

Ms. Palmer: I will start with the first question.

One example, here in Ontario, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services has recently, in their efforts to reform the child welfare system, launched a program called Ready, Set, Go, which supports youth better as they age out of care in terms of increasing the money they receive and continuing financial support of youth from care who are pursuing post-secondary education.

What I would like to see in terms of strengthening that program — or the next iteration as that program collects data and looks to see how it can do better — is to become more nuanced and pay attention to the identities of youth aging out of care, what particular struggles and barriers they face and have money allocated in that direction.

For example, youth aging out of care with disabilities disproportionately face many more barriers and challenges in every area of life than youth without disabilities. It would be integral and vital for those youth in particular to receive more supports.

Other youth with other particular identities also face increased adversity, such as youth who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+ and racialized youth, and higher incidents of discrimination in terms of trying to obtain housing, for example. Youth with those intersections could also benefit from more nuanced and targeted assistance.

While this program is open and beneficial for all youth from care, what I would like to see as the next step would be more focused and targeted support towards particular youth with particular needs. That would be extremely beneficial.

Can you repeat your second question?

Senator Arnot: I was asking, in your view, what are the most effective strategies for child welfare systems in terms of building a sustainable, long-term support network for youth post-care? What do they have to do to do a better job of addressing those issues before the child leaves care?

Ms. Palmer: Right. One of the many factors that youth face when they age out of care is loneliness and that sense of isolation; before youth leave care, ensuring they are connected to community of their choice but to community organizations, resourcing programming where they have spaces, people and places that are supported and resourced by government where youth can continue to have a sense of connection, particularly with other youth from care, where you really find a wealth of understanding.

No matter what community you identify with, when you’re there with that community, you just know that folks get it and it’s not a matter of you having to tell your story over and over or to explain experiences over and over. I know for myself, even at my age, when I am in a community with former foster youth, there is just a kind of sense of coming home, and you can speak and engage in a way that only that particular community gets. I think it’s very important to ensure that every youth aging out of care has connections to community and resources so that they do not feel alone in their lives and know that they have places to turn to because that loneliness factor is a huge detriment to the experiences that youth have when they age out of care.

Senator Arnot: Thanks very much to all the witnesses.

Senator Simons: Dr. Fallon and Dr. Vandermorris, I want to thank you very much for sharing your academic expertise, but, Ms. Palmer, I want to thank you for your bravery and your candour in speaking out about your own time in care and how it has influenced your career and your advocacy. I am a guest tonight on this committee, but I was a journalist for many years before I became a senator. One of the bodies of work of which I was most proud was a series of investigations which compelled the Alberta government to be much more transparent about the number of children who were dying in care, and the province now tracks and reports every year on the number of children who died in care.

The province also, to its credit, over the course of three different governments, has been tracking the number of youth between the ages of 18 and 22 who are receiving transitional support who have also died in a calendar year, and the numbers are shocking. In 2016-17, when they started doing these metrics, they reported two deaths. By 2021, it was 14. In 2021-22, it was 22. For the last couple of years, it has been steady at 16 deaths a year; and in this fiscal year, from April 1 to September 30, there have already been eight deaths of youth between 18 and 22. It’s a group of about 2,000 youth who are receiving transitional support. I find those numbers shocking because the kids who have aged out of care are dying at a higher rate than the kids who are receiving care or who are left with parents who may have a history of abuse.

I believe the main causes of death at the moment are suicide, homicide and drug overdose. Those numbers throw into stark relief that we’re not just talking about helping kids get scholarships or find housing. This is a question about helping youth survive past the age of 22, and I wonder if you find those numbers shocking or if those numbers reaffirm your own anecdotal observations?

Ms. Palmer: That’s not shocking to me when we think about a youth’s experiences that brought them into care and often the experiences youth have while they are in care, and then have a birthday that most kids who are not in care look forward to but that you are terrified of because now you’re going to be left alone. When we think about the lack of hope youth feel, which also plays into the lack of uptake for post-secondary education, the lack of belief that they have a future and have something viable to look forward to, that they have connection and community, those numbers aren’t shocking and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are more. They also speak to the work that needs to happen while we are in care, dealing with the trauma, having adequate mental health services, having that sense of connection and not being cut off, as my fellow panellists spoke about, at an arbitrary age.

With youth having more involvement in their care plans and having a say as to when they are ready to age out, go out on their own and be independent, families that don’t have care involvement don’t turn their kids out at a particular birthday and say, “See you later, it was nice knowing you.” It’s not surprising that youth are unfortunately and sadly taking their own lives when they feel a lack of hope and connection and don’t have viable pathways. Even when they have the skill and the capacity to pursue post-secondary education, the finances are not there. Without hope, what chance are we really giving youth?

Senator Simons: Do you know if there are other provinces that track this data? I’m most familiar with the Alberta data because I fought for years to get it.

Ms. Palmer: We don’t have enough data overall on youth as they age out of care, and that’s something the political action committee is really advocating for, and that needs to change. We need to know if what we did while we had youth in our care worked. Is it working? What changes can we make? Without data, without that driving the choices we make, where we position money and how we support youth, we don’t know if what we’re doing is right and making any difference at all. It is important to start tracking what happens to our youth as they age out and what we can do to improve those outcomes. The only way we can know what to do adequately is by tracking and keeping that data.

Ms. Fallon: I have nothing to add to the important and astute observations that Ms. Palmer made. We have very little data about children and youth served in child protection systems across Canada and almost no data about their trajectories. You’re asking about the counterfactual, what would happen if we didn’t serve a child who eventually aged out of care. We don’t know that. One of the issues for children we bring into care is often their trauma goes unresolved. We may bring a child into care because of their situation, but we don’t actively ensure there are services available to address that trauma and to keep addressing that trauma for as long as the child grows into emerging adulthood.

There is a lack of efficacious mental health interventions, developmental interventions, and there are significant access issues. Ms. Palmer really reminded us it’s not only that but it’s also when people have very important parts of their identity that need to be acknowledged in the way that we serve children, youth and their families. So really nothing to add from the important words that Ms. Palmer shared.

Dr. Vandermorris: I echo the statement that Ms. Palmer said was the foundation of the response. From a scientific perspective, I’ll just add that we know, as both Dr. Fallon and Ms. Palmer have alluded to, that exposure to trauma in childhood has profound neurocognitive effects. We know that exposure to cortisol, which is the stress hormone, alters the way that the brain develops, and that stress can be amplified by what is known as minority stress or the experiences of discrimination and violence that are experienced by racialized and other marginalized populations.

We also know that there is the opportunity to intervene, that the adolescent brain is incredibly neuroplastic and that it really is incumbent on all of us to respond and intervene in a way that can reprogram that neurocognitive development in a manner that repositions young people to positive trajectories. This is not set in stone. There is neuroscience that underpins the potential for youth to have positive trajectories regardless of their early experiences, but it does require commitment and responsiveness.

Models like a readiness approach to transition is a trauma-informed approach because it centres that notion of choice and control, which are two of the tenets of trauma-informed practice. It’s not simply that it feels good, but it actually is grounded in an evidence-based [technical difficulties] the interpersonal modalities that we know allow individuals to have restructuring of their emotional responses and their understanding of how they can interact in a positive way and have safe, protective and positive trajectories.

The key is the perspective of the experience of being in care, but it can be connected to the science. I want to just echo that point.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: I thank the witnesses for being here. Your presentations made it clear that it’s very important to consider intersectionality when young people come out of the foster system.

Ms. Palmer, like my colleague, Senator Simons, I recognize the courage and determination that led to the success you’ve achieved so far, especially in your studies.

According to a study by the Institut national de la recherche scientifique that was released this year, young people who have left the care of Quebec’s Director of Youth Protection are two and a half times less likely to obtain a high school diploma. Are the proportions in your provinces similar?

[English]

Dr. Vandermorris: I’m happy to pose the question to Ms. Palmer, if that’s helpful. I believe the question is about a study that was produced in Quebec that showed that youth aging out of care were 2.5 times less likely to get a high school diploma, and the question is whether this data were replicated in the regions that you worked.

Ms. Palmer: Yes, it is. Only 8% of youth from care graduate from high school and go on to post-secondary, and those percentages are not new. That has remained steady for at least the past 40 years.

That’s why the political action committee is so concerned with youth receiving their education. We don’t focus on graduating from high school because there’s always opportunity to apply to post-secondary as a mature student. We do focus on higher education and specialized skills because that is what will level the playing field for youth; that is what will lead to youth getting higher-paying jobs and better life outcomes. We really focus on the post-secondary and higher education rather than focus on obtaining high school diplomas. We also know, as my fellow panellists explained in their presentation, that the milestones for youth from care are often delayed, and that’s why we also have no age restrictions on the tuition-free spots that we negotiate with post-secondary education because those milestones are often later. We have former youth from care — we even have seniors — who are taking advantage and getting their post-secondary education.

Those numbers are across the board, and they’re not limited only to Canada. They’re worldwide in child protection systems all over the globe.

Senator Gerba: Thank you so much. What recommendation do you have for the federal government?

Ms. Palmer: I would like the federal government to support organizations like ours who are ensuring that youth from care have no financial barriers to accessing higher education. That is an absolute levelling of the playing field, as well as providing wraparound supports, because as my colleagues stated, there are other detriments. There are mental health issues, precarious housing and food insecurity. Many of our youth from care are being trafficked directly into trafficking and being involved disproportionately in the justice system.

Our youth need wraparound supports. They need to be filled with hope of a brighter future. They need to be supported financially past the age of 18, and they need to be given hope and knowledge that they can succeed and can have bright futures, so that they will not be taking their own lives out of despair, stigmatization and a lack of belief that their life can be any better than how it started. That has to change.

Senator Gerba: Thank you.

Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you for appearing before us today. I came in midway, so if somebody has already asked this question, I apologize.

Are there any initiatives that you have seen that bring you hope that you’re happy about? Is there anything that you’re seeing in any of the provinces for youth aging out of care?

Ms. Fallon: I’ll just level set by saying there is a dearth of research about what works for youth aging out of care.

That said, our young people and adults who have been in care and age out of care are telling us what they need. They need the health, social service and educational sectors to work together. They need programs that affirm and acknowledge their identity. They need adult-positive relationships in their lives for well past the age when the system no longer takes an active role. But we need to make sure that they have those kinds of lifelong supports and communities.

My colleague Dr. Nico Trocmé at McGill always poses this question: If we’ve done a good job with a young person who has aged out of care, then they will know where they will be spending their holidays, whatever holiday they celebrate, in 10 years’ time. I think that is such an important observation. That is the kind of connectivity, scaffolding, supports, that — there are promising practices, but the challenge for us as Canadian citizens is that it’s not consistent. It behooves us to ensure the equity piece that all youth and all young people who age out of care have access to those kinds of programs and approaches.

Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: I have a couple of questions as well. First of all, Dr. Fallon and Dr. Vandermorris, I noticed on your submission that you had some recommendations and I wondered if you would like to share those to put them on the record.

Dr. Vandermorris: Thank you for the opportunity to put these forward. I’ll perhaps take up where Dr. Fallon left off. There is a need for more data and research, particularly longitudinal studies, to better understand the specific needs of youth leaving care, the types of interventions and policies that lead to more successful outcomes and a recognition of factors that may be relevant to certain subpopulations or communities so that no child is left behind as we move forward in trying to promote more positive transitions out of care for all youth.

There is also a need for policies and programs that are comprehensive, cross-sectoral, integrated and that don’t demand youth seek support from services for each of their individual needs from a different delivery point in the absence of recognition of the youth as a whole, holistic individual with the needs that intersect and influence each other. Programs that address mental health, health, education, housing and social connectedness in a way that is integrated and responsive to the individual is needed.

I think the last thing I will say before I turn it over to Dr. Fallon is you’ve heard allusion to the need for national standards or national framework. I’m reminded as an adolescent medicine paediatrician of Canada’s youth policy, its grounding and the rights of youth to be heard, respected and have equal access to opportunities and supports and the impact of that articulation of youth and their rights as a guiding principle and a starting point for accountability, reflection and action toward a consistent approach that is equitable across regions, populations and needs.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you.

Anything to add, Dr. Fallon?

Ms. Fallon: I will just add one of the more helpful things we say as social workers is to start where the client is at. I think our recommendation that policies and programs be flexible enough to start where a young person is and get them where they identify they would like to go is really the basic tenet of any successful program.

The Deputy Chair: My last question — and this will be the last question for this panel because we’re about out of time — is for you, Ms. Palmer. Full disclosure, I’m actually a social worker, moonlighting as a senator. This study is partly inspired by a client that I had very early in my career, an 18-year-old who was admitted to a mental health in-patient unit when she turned 18 as she was told she was no longer eligible to live in the foster home where she had lived in for 15 years.

I believe, Ms. Palmer, that many people will be inspired by your resilience. I’m wondering if there are lessons from your resilience that would be helpful to many who are not so resilient?

Ms. Palmer: I so appreciate your question and this is something I’ve been asked over the years: How did you? I’m also a professional speaker and my answer I always say is that I am the product of many programs, services and individual people who left their fingerprints on my spirit, and that also speaks to what we talked about here — about the need for connection, about the need to incentivize youth from care to uptake into their development, into higher education.

I had different people over the years — I lived in a variety of foster homes and group homes — so whether it was one foster parent, a staff at the group home, another girl that I met or a teacher one year in school who saw past my hardness, my anger, my behaviours that I exhibited and saw potential in me and encouraged that, who spoke a word of kindness, who smiled, who opened the door that I couldn’t get open, that showed me how to navigate a barrier that I was facing, who invited me to dinner once I had aged out and had nowhere to go. I had a staff Salma Clark who kept in touch with me, broke the rules. Once she found out that I spent that first Christmas alone, it never happened again. Every Easter, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, I was at her house. When she didn’t hear from me, she would call me. What’s going on? How are you doing? Giving me encouragement, different professors.

I struggled, as I said, a lot. I don’t want to see youth from care continuing to struggle in ways they need not. We need to wrap them with care, with financial assistance, with housing. These youth are in the circumstance they are for no fault of their own, there is no doing of their own, and yet receive so much stigma and negativity from society.

When I say I am the result of other people’s goodness, of programs that I was able to connect to, to services that helped me, that is the truth. I can’t name just one person — there were dozens — but that is what youth need on a consistent basis, as my co-panellists shared. We need to have data. We need to track so that we can better provide for what youth need. We need to provide avenues for youth from care to share their experiences, what they went through, what they would have needed and make sure youth aging out of care have all their IDs, that they’re armed with things they need to succeed with knowledge about how to navigate the housing structure. What do you do when things go wrong? Who can you turn to? Have communal places where they can congregate, speak to one another, support one another and be supported. They need a community. They need to not be alone, not to be left alone and they need to be supported financially. Absolutely.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you so much.

Ms. Palmer: Thank you.

The Deputy Chair: I would like to sincerely thank our three witnesses this evening. Thank you for agreeing to participate in this very important study. Your assistance — bringing your voices, giving voice to the voiceless here this evening — is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Salma Ataullahjan (Chair) in the chair.

The Chair: I shall now introduce our second panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make an opening statement of five minutes. We shall hear from the witnesses and then turn to questions from the senators.

With us via video conference, please welcome Ashley Bach, First Nations Former Youth in Care and Advocate, National Council of Youth in Care Advocates. Also with us via video conference, please welcome Jessica Knutson, Leader, Clinical Education and Special Projects, Indigenous Health, BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital, Provincial Health Services Authority, British Columbia.

I will now invite Ms. Bach to make her presentation, followed by Ms. Knutson.

Ashley Bach, First Nations Former Youth in Care & Advocate, National Council of Youth in Care Advocates: [ Indigenous language spoken.]

Good evening, senators. My name is Ashley Bach. I’m Eagle Clan, and I’m from the Mishkeegogamang First Nation. I currently live in Thunder Bay on Fort William First Nation’s traditional territory, and I’m a 2L at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law as well as a lived experience member of the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates.

I didn’t grow up in my community because I was placed in foster care and then adopted out when I was 5. I’ve lived all over, including in Ottawa, during the COVID lockdowns. That first summer of COVID, while downtown Ottawa was still mostly closed, I met a young Indigenous person who was sitting on the ground outside of the Ottawa Public Library. There had just been an incredible downpour, and she was wearing a neon shirt without a sweater. Her backpack and reusable grocery bags full of things were spread out around her, and she was crying and didn’t look okay.

This young person was from a remote First Nation community in northern Ontario. She had been in a group home in Ottawa over 1,000 kilometres away from her home community but had recently had her birthday and reached the age of majority, aging out of care. Since then, she’d stayed in different shelters but didn’t feel safe. She couldn’t go back to her home community, and she didn’t want to live anymore. That day, she tried to end her life. On that day in 2020, there was nothing I could do to support her. There weren’t dedicated supports for First Nations youth leaving care, and I felt so helpless as she took other steps to harm herself.

A year and a half later, the national council released their report on Equitable Standards for Transitions to Adulthood for Youth in Care, which I was privileged to be involved in. The goals of the equitable standards are to ensure that youth in care are afforded equitable supports and conditions for success so they may thrive and not only struggle to survive. Further, the Equitable Standards report states that youth in care can no longer wait and can no longer be left behind — they need comprehensive and holistic supports now.

I shared similar thoughts with the Assembly of First Nations, or AFN, chiefs the other week because when youth in care are made to wait, they get left behind, they grow up in the system and their childhoods are lost. This is especially pertinent as we try to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma for Indigenous peoples.

At about the same time as the Equitable Standards report was released, Indigenous Services Canada, or ISC, announced their post-majority support services program. This program resulted from a consent order from 2022 CHRT 8, and Canada was to provide funding for the program until March 31, 2023, under that order.

The post-majority support services program aims to support the safety and well-being of First Nations youth and young adults in a way that is culturally appropriate, in their self‑identified best interest and provided on the basis of substantive equality. Some of the supports under that include housing, food, financial security, mental health and addiction supports and healthy relationship supports. These are provided to youth under the age of 26 who have been in care in the First Nations Child and Family Services Program and who are ordinarily resident on reserve or in the Yukon.

This program is important because youth are aging out of care without enough supports, and they often don’t have great outcomes. Plus, First Nations youth face additional barriers to well-being and success on top of that.

But the post-majority support services program doesn’t have guaranteed funding under the consent order. Instead, after March 31, 2023, the post-majority support services program was intended to be funded by reforming the First Nations Child and Family Services Program. Unfortunately, that program has not been reformed yet, and a proposed final settlement agreement for it was not ratified by the AFN chiefs. To my understanding, ISC is still funding the post-majority support services program. However, there is no certainty that the program will continue in the next fiscal year or if the government changes. This means there could be a gap in or end to the provision of these services.

When I think of these services ending, I think of that First Nation youth I met sitting outside the Ottawa Public Library. I wonder if she would have been in a different, safer and healthier place if she had aged out of care when the post-majority support services program was available. I wonder if she is still alive right now.

I hope there will be a future where youth in care don’t see their birthday as the end of supports and services and don’t feel like their only option is to end their life. I hope that there is a future where youth in and from care are safe and supported to not just survive but also to thrive.

With that being said, I wanted to highlight three calls to action. My first call to action is to establish and implement the equitable standards nationally and make this hope for the future reality. My second call to action is supporting Canada to enact federal legislation for youth leaving care, including recognizing the human rights of all youth in and from care and rights that are specific for Indigenous youth in and from care, too. Finally, my third call to action is protecting and enhancing ISC’s post‑majority support services program for First Nations youth leaving care, including ensuring sustainable and long-term funding that provides certainty to youth who are leaving the system.

Meegwetch. Thank you for inviting me to appear. I welcome any questions you may have.

Jessica Knutson, Leader —Clinical Education & Special Projects, Indigenous Health, BC Children’s & Women’s Hospital, Provincial Health Services Authority, British Columbia, as an individual: [ Indigenous language spoken.]

Thank you for inviting me to be here and speak with you today. I am calling in from the unceded, ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. I come to you as a mixed-ancestry Cree woman and a person with lived experience in the child welfare system. What I am going to share with you over the next hour comes from knowledge I have gathered through my own lived experience, education and work experience in child welfare, including the wisdom and teachings shared with me by Indigenous youth from care, elders and knowledge keepers.

I also have the privilege of being a member of the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates, and I have worked alongside incredible youth from care and allies across the country in developing the equitable standards framework mentioned in last week’s session by Melanie Doucet.

What I want to centre in our discussion together today is that when we speak to matters of child welfare, Indigenous peoples need to be more fulsomely engaged and included in these discussions and not only as single statistics or footnotes. Many of us may know or have heard about the overrepresentation of Indigenous children and youth in care. Indigenous children are nearly 20 times more likely to come into care than non‑Indigenous children. Statistics Canada’s census from 2021 shows that Indigenous children make up less than 10% of the child population in this country, but over 50% of children in the child welfare system.

To speak about the experiences of aging out and what is needed to support young people and having meaningful transitions from adolescence into adulthood, we have to zoom out. We need to be grounded in the truth and the reality of how the current form of child welfare came to be, and what has and continues to contribute to the dramatic overrepresentation of Indigenous children in this system.

The current iteration of child welfare comes from and is cemented in the colonial, patriarchal and White supremacist ideologies and actions and the attempted genocide of Indigenous people in this country. In addition to knowing and understanding this country’s colonial history and the ongoing impacts of social work and child welfare on Indigenous peoples and communities, it is also important to have knowledge and understanding of Indigenous-led policies, reports and legislation, to have knowledge of the past, of present circumstances and how Indigenous communities want to move forward in the future, including the specific Calls to Action, Calls for Justice and to accountability for the federal government.

Some of the reports to guide us on this journey, many of which are grounded in the sacred stories of Indigenous peoples, include the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which was published in 1996, and includes an Indigenous youth voice on concerns and their vision for the future; the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which came out in 2007, but didn’t come into Royal Assent in Canada until 2021, and reinforces the obligation to improve well-being of Indigenous peoples; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was signed by Canada in 1991, with the first basic principle in this convention being non‑discrimination, and what we have heard in the sessions from other witnesses is that youth in care, particularly Indigenous youth, face a lot of different types of discrimination; the next is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Calls to Action, which came out in 2015, and created a space and place for healing for those affected by residential schools, their legacy and has specific Calls to Action for child welfare, including the full implementation of Jordan’s Principle as well as national standards; Reclaiming Power and Place MMIWG2S report and the Calls to Action that came out in 2019 also speaks to the reform needed in the aging out process and the training that has been called for, including the history of child welfare, anti‑racism training and cultural and language training.

In B.C. particularly, a report that comes to mind is the Disaggregated demographic data collection in British Columbia: The grandmother perspective, which speaks to the importance of collecting disaggregated data to advance human rights, to collect data to develop policy that effectively addresses systemic inequalities and allows for the lived experience and stories of the many to be heard by those in power. It comes from the Indigenous matriarchal perspectives, the importance of relationship and wanting to know this information because we care. Other stories in B.C. include Skye’s Legacy and Paige’s Story, which share the journeys of two young Indigenous women who both died during their time in care and how the system failed to provide relational, cultural, emotional and physical permanency and a sense of belonging, and highlights how cultural connection is a critical and known protective factor for Indigenous youth.

What these reports have in common is to highlight that our stories are important in learning how to create a better future for our children and our communities. I encourage you to take a moment to reflect on your stories of journeying into adulthood. What skills, support, love and care you may have received from your parents, caregivers, family and community or what you didn’t receive and wish that you had? What would have been helpful in your transition into adulthood? I’m sure there would be many similarities to the pillars within the national council’s equitable standards framework, which are core supports that every person, regardless of who they are or where they reside, have the right to experience. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you both for your presentations. We will now proceed to questions from senators. Colleagues, you have five minutes for question, and that includes the answer. I will turn to Deputy Chair Senator Bernard.

Senator Bernard: Let me start by saying thank you to both of you for bringing your voices to this panel this evening as we try to centre Indigenous voices, stories and experiences in our study. This was not the only place, but the first place we are putting a specific focus on Indigenous experiences. I want to say that your personal resilience is very inspiring, and you have turned that resilience into a passion for helping others.

I was following very closely the chiefs’ meeting earlier this month and the fact that the majority voted against the agreement. I wonder if either one of you would be able to comment on your thoughts about that, where things stand and where you would like to see things move with regards to that historic agreement.

Ms. Bach: For me, to make it relevant to this study, I felt that the issue of the post-majority support services wasn’t raised enough during the chiefs’ assembly. A lot of the focus was on the dollar amount and that the funding for long-term reform of the First Nations Child and Family Services program would have been only 10 years long. The post-majority support services program wasn’t talked about much. I honestly felt really frustrated by that because it’s one of the funding pots that is not guaranteed. It could have a really big impact on youth who are transitioning out of the system and into adulthood, but now there is more uncertainty about whether it’s going to continue, especially if there is a change in government.

I could talk forever about what I would love to see in long‑term reform, but I think that’s probably the most relevant for the committee right now. Beyond that, of course, seeing the equitable standards implemented in the post-majority support services program, if it is going to continue, would be amazing. I would love to hear a lot of youth voices as well for people who are receiving support from post-majority support services. Thank you.

Senator Bernard: Thank you.

Ms. Knutson: What comes to mind in hearing that decision is a question from Harlan Pruden, who is a Cree scholar living here in B.C. He asks, “Does the remedy match the harm?” When we’re talking about hundreds of years of harm against Indigenous peoples, does a 10-year timeline make sense that they will be able to fix the discrimination and the harm against Indigenous peoples in that time? Knowing what we all know — and you more than all of us — of how slow a lot of change is, that wouldn’t be possible.

So that remedy does not match the harm. For those who voted against it, they saw that, along with the many other reasons that they would have said “no” in making that decision.

Therefore, yes, I think about that and what is needed. Our children and youth deserve to not have a timeline like that in place, that after that, then the federal government doesn’t have to be responsible for that continued discrimination against First Nations and other Indigenous peoples when it comes to child welfare.

To see the changes that have been asked for again and again by Indigenous peoples in some of the reports and the Calls to Action that I spoke about in my opening statement, a lot of this information and what has been said by previous panel members, this information is out there. It has been gathered, and if you’re working on the ground, I can speak for the B.C. perspective of the incredible youth voice and youth advocates that are here and have been doing this work for decades, what they deserve and what our future generations deserve.

Senator Bernard: Ms. Knutson, you mentioned a number of reports. I don’t think you mentioned the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls report. Did you? Did I miss it?

Ms. Knutson: Yes, I did. The Reclaiming Power and Place report. Yes.

Senator Bernard: Yes. Thank you. What are your thoughts about their Calls to Action around youth aging out of care? Do you feel we have made any progress on that?

Ms. Knutson: I think there is a lot of important information in that report, in particular, violence that Indigenous women and children face and the reasons why those actions were taken, and that wasn’t by mistake because children and women are the centre of our communities, and so the particular actions against and the violence against Indigenous women and girls isn’t by mistake. There are hundreds of Calls for Justice in this report, and so they do speak about the aging-out process. Like I said, they also speak to the need to know the history of child welfare, like the training around that that is needed, the anti-racism training that is needed and then cultural and language training as well. They speak to different principles of change around substantive equality and human and Indigenous rights, and so I don’t think we have quite addressed a lot of these Calls to Action in that sense.

Particularly, this is one of the ones that speaks to me in this discussion:

We call upon all levels of government and child welfare services for a reform of laws and obligations with respect to youth “aging out” of the system, including ensuring a complete network of support from childhood into adulthood, based on capacity and needs, which includes opportunities for education, housing, and related supports. This includes the provision of free post-secondary education for all children in care in Canada.

Which I think has been echoed by every single person that has been on this panel.

Senator Bernard: Thank you.

Senator Simons: I wanted to say tansi and hiy hiy to you both. Ms. Bach, you raised an interesting issue when you told your story about encountering a young Indigenous woman who was unhoused in the streets of Ottawa.

In 2022, Statistics Canada did a census of Canada’s homeless population in 72 different communities, large and small. They found that nearly one in three of the people that they surveyed had grown up in either foster care, in a youth group home or in another child welfare program, and out of half the youth that they met on the streets, almost half of them had grown up in care.

At a time when so many Canadians are confronting the very visible encampment populations and that there is so much public concern about homelessness on our streets, I wondered if I can ask each of you to speak to the correlation between aging out of care and homelessness and how important it is to tackle the one problem if we’re trying to tackle the other. Ms. Knutson, I’ll start with you.

Ms. Knutson: Thank you. This is kind of what I’m speaking to in the opening statement of, particularly, the majority of youth aging out of care are Indigenous youth. When we’re speaking about the impacts of colonization on Indigenous peoples, yes, that number goes up because of people being in care, and you’re more likely to be in care if you are Indigenous.

We also have to look at some of these other factors that have led to this. A huge part of that is the forced relocation of Indigenous peoples and the movement onto the reserve, which is related to Ms. Bach’s story that she shared that even those who are on reserves in different areas have already been forcibly relocated to those spaces and then have to be forcibly relocated again to access different services that aren’t available in their areas for schooling, for health care, all of those things. They then end up not being able to get back to their community. Or maybe it’s not safe to be back in community, and then when you turn 19, all the services are gone and you can’t afford to pay rent here in Vancouver, which is $2,000 to $3,000 a month for a one‑bedroom apartment. Then what do you do? You are in shelters; you’re on the street.

There is a strong community here in the Downtown Eastside. There are a lot of negative stereotypes that come out of that, but people find a sense of community and a sense of belonging in these spaces as well. So looking at what is also there that people are finding that keep them in those spaces, on top of all of the negative stereotypes that people have as well. I’ll pass it over to you, Ms. Bach.

Ms. Bach: Thank you, Ms. Knutson. Thank you, senator, as well.

For me, the story that I told of the youth whom I met on the streets in Ottawa, she was from a community. When I looked up on a map how far it was, it was like a thousand kilometres direct flying, but if you were to drive all the way up to Sioux Lookout and then maybe either ice road in or fly in from there, it’s even further.

The cost of that sort of a trip is — well, it’s probably more than a month’s rent. You can’t expect a young person who has just left care to be able to pay for that trip home. Even if a youth was able to move home to a remote community, to travel back, there isn’t a guarantee there will be housing there either.

Senator Bernard had asked about the final settlement agreement on long-term reform that the AFN chiefs had voted against ratifying the other week, a good portion of that agreement included funding for housing, and I think it might have been under the umbrella of preventative services. But that could have been — that’s a really key part of addressing the issue too for the youth who do want to move home.

I used to be on the Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s youth council, and I held the housing and infrastructure portfolio for them, and during that time, they had a project called Creating a Home for Our Youth. It’s outlined in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation Housing Strategy, but that project — the very first meeting that I remember going to for it, before I was on youth council even, both myself and another person wrote the exact same thing down on our sticky notes for the facilitated session as we were both former youth in care and had wanted to move back to our communities, which were — my community is road connected, but very far North, and his community was a fly-in community. We wrote almost word for word the same thing, that we wanted to move home, but we couldn’t because we didn’t have a home to go to.

It doesn’t surprise me that half of — or possibly over half — the youth that were in the census data and surveys who were homeless were also former youth in care. It doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s really deeply concerning that nothing has really been done on this yet.

There has been awareness of the issue, but we need actual concrete funding, for example, for housing on reserve so that youth can move back. The Creating a Home for Our Youth project and subsequent Nishnawbe Aski Nation housing projects have designed sort of housing for youth that had been in the system and for other youth and other populations as well on reserve, and that money needs to be there to actually create space for people to go home and live in.

Senator Simons: You raise an interesting point because in one of your Calls to Action, I thought, “Well, here is the challenge.” Child welfare is a provincial responsibility. The federal government doesn’t have the power to tell provinces that they have to maintain services until the age of 25 or that they have to set up a system so that people only age out when they’re ready. You’re right, the federal government does have considerably more power for funding for housing on reserve, but one of the challenges this committee will face is that child welfare is a provincial responsibility and jurisdiction, even for First Nations kids.

Ms. Knutson: Speaking about finances to be able to live after you’ve aged out, if you’re lucky enough to be in low-income housing, you may be able to make things work, but a significant number of youth aging out of care and are going onto income assistance or Person with Disabilities, or PWD. We saw during the pandemic with the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB, was that the minimum amount that the federal government thought people could live off of was $2,000, but people on income assistance and people with PWDs are not receiving $2,000 a month. In some cities, $2,000 is not even covering your rent. This continues the cycle of poverty where you’re not even receiving the basic amount that the federal government said that people need in order to live during the pandemic. How do we then bring that into income assistance, PWDs and other income supports for people?

Senator Simons: Thank you both very much for being with us tonight.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: My question is for both witnesses. Thank you for your work and your contribution to this important study. Our previous witnesses explained that young people aging out of the child protection system would benefit much more from a personalized approach based on their needs rather than a generic age-based approach. Do you agree with that, and should it be a national standard from a Canadian perspective?

[English]

Ms. Bach: I absolutely agree. Part of equitable standards and just generally with service provision, you can’t just assume that everyone is going to be at the same place when they turn, for example, 18, 19, 21, 25 or 26 — not everyone is going to be in the same place. There are also youth who have disabilities and require extra care. At least with regard to First Nations youth, many receive support through Jordan’s principle right now, but will also hit an age cut-off at some point.

Ms. Knutson: Yes, I absolutely agree as well. Everyone else has spoken about the importance of having that readiness-based framework instead of the arbitrary age of 19. Some youth are ready to be independent at 19, and some are not. Having that distinctions-based approach that we talk about as well. The one‑size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for every person and the location is different for rural and remote people, particularly, with a lot of Indigenous children and youth in the urban setting as well. Having this one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Thank you very much. Ms. Bach, your second call to action was about enacting federal legislation that addresses what we’re talking about today. Is age a consideration that should be addressed in such legislation?

[English]

Ms. Bach: I absolutely believe an age cut-off would need to be addressed in the legislation instead of applying the equitable standard and being able to look at the individual who has been in care and who has been receiving supports and services, and then evaluating whether or not they’re in a position to officially transition out of care. I also mentioned recognizing the human rights of all youth in infirm care and the specific rights of an Indigenous youth in infirm care, which could be important in this as well. For example, when I think of an Indigenous youth who is transitioning into adulthood and who’s been in the system, they may be looking to return home or may not be able to permanently return home, but to visit their home communities and build that connection and also maintain that connection with their communities, their cultures, their languages and their lands, which is important.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Ms. Knutson, do you have anything to add?

[English]

Ms. Knutson: As has been said, post-majority services are different in every province. For many of the youth I’ve worked with in B.C. and in other provinces as well, the post-majority services also have the age cut-off. They’re aging out of care at 18 or 19 and experiencing that again at 22, 25 or whatever that next age cut-off is, and that experience is traumatic, it brings up those experiences again of the first time they had to age out of care.

A personal example of a change in this is the Indigenous child and family services agency I previously worked at had a youth advisory committee, and they also had an age cut-off for their youth advisory committee. They had a discussion about why they had that and made the decision to change that. For their youth advisory committee, it’s “Leave when you’re ready” instead of “You have to leave at 25.” Naturally, we’ve seen youth leaving when they’re ready. Sometimes that’s 25; sometimes it’s 30. It has been beautiful to watch that happen and to watch youth make that decision for themselves.

Senator Arnot: This question is for both witnesses, if you would comment on this: From your experience, what role does Indigenous way of knowing play in supporting successful transitions for youth aging out of foster care? Do you think the mainstream child welfare systems could do a better job of integrating these practices? Do you think the necessary resources, time and space currently exist to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing?

Related to this, you mentioned — both of you — that strong community connections are built through cultural programming. Do you think child welfare organizations have a role to play in enabling these relationships beyond the age of majority?

Ms. Bach: I’m going to try to answer all your questions, but I might drop one of them, so let me know if I miss one.

With regard to Indigenous ways of knowing, from an Anishinaabeg perspective, because I’m Anishinaabe, when I think of, for example, the land, the land isn’t going to make you age out of care. It’s not going to say, “Hey, you’re 25 years old today, and that’s it. I’m not providing for you anymore.” There is a relationship that’s there. It’s upheld; the land is upholding part of it. The individual or the community involved is also upholding that relationship. The concept of aging out at an arbitrary age cut-off — in my mind — wouldn’t be coherent in an Anishinaabeg world view. It might also be good to talk to elders about that as well and all the many nations across Turtle Island because many may have other perspectives too. I don’t think a hard age cut-off would make sense in an Anishinaabeg perspective.

Ms. Knutson: Lots to answer there so forgive me if I forget part of it.

It is an incredibly important part. There is lots of research on the protective factor that culture and a sense of connection to community has. Again, I’ll speak from my own perspective being an urban Indigenous person working in urban Indigenous child welfare.

Something the agency I previously worked at would do is try, once a year, to have each child and youth going back to visit their home territories and communities to try and build that sense of belonging and community. Sometimes that’s not possible. Sometimes trips have to be cancelled, all of those things. Only going back once every year or every couple of years, by the time that youth is aging out of care, may not have those strong ties to community. It can be intimidating, overwhelming.

There are all those other things youth are grappling with when they’re aging out that the focus of connecting back to community may not be possible for them because of some things we’ve already mentioned, that intergenerational trauma, disconnection and the cost associated with getting back to community.

Culture and spirituality are one of the main pillars in the equitable standards framework we’ve developed. I do think there is a responsibility in post-majority services to provide for this care.

We talk a lot about many changes made around post‑secondary education, which is amazing. But for Indigenous youth, some people may not want to go to post-secondary. For Indigenous youth in particular, where are the supports financially, and the people that can be surrounded by them to continue to help them develop that sense of connection to visit back to their community, to go with them? It’s an intimidating thing to go by yourself for a lot of folks. How do we continue to support them in doing that? That is a really important part of that work.

In B.C. for the post-majority services under what’s newly called Strengthening Abilities and Journeys of Empowerment, or SAJE, you’re able to apply for SAJE if you’re connecting with your community and your culture through programming. There aren’t supports in facilitating that for you. You have to figure it out yourself. Many folks are not at that point in their lives where they’re able to do that for themselves at the age of 18 or 19. How we continue to do that for them as they go into adulthood is important.

Again, those protective factors and that sense of belonging is important for youth in care; they’re oftentimes missing that because the system does that unbelonging for them, creates that unbelonging over and over again throughout their time in care. They feel that afterwards.

Senator Arnot: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Bach, you said you shared similar thoughts — going back to your testimony — with the AFN chiefs the other day because when youth in care are made to wait, they get left behind. They grow up in a system. Their childhoods are lost. What was their reaction when you shared your thoughts with them?

Ms. Bach: I think many of the chiefs understood the urgency around addressing issues related to youth in care. Our nations have already seen multiple generations of children taken away, first with residential schools, then in the Sixties Scoop, then the decades leading up to the Millennium Scoop, and now with the Millennium Scoop Two. That’s multiple generations of children gone. In that relatively short period of time, we’ve also seen our language speaking rates and access to culture decline.

On the other hand, we have seen addictions increasing and a suicide crisis. That urgency is there. It’s something I find — for example, the government and other colonial processes aren’t necessarily as responsive to you because, for example, the government has an election period. You have to wait several months while that happens. Then everyone has to onboard again. Then there has to be the political will there.

For First Nations, that urgency is there all the time because you have kids being removed every single day. Then you also have kids and young people frequently who aren’t going to make it home and who pass away, either while they’re in the system or after leaving the system.

The Chair: As someone who represents Canada overseas often, one question I am asked is about the care we don’t provide for our Indigenous people; it comes up consistently when we’re having conversations. Sometimes we’re talking to different countries about what is lacking or what they should be doing for their peoples. I always get this question back.

You said there is awareness of the issue but nothing is being done. I wish to ask both of you: Is there any positive change you have seen or you hope you will see? Is anything changing?

Ms. Knutson: Yes. I’ll speak from the B.C. perspective.

There have been many changes and definitely wanting to acknowledge and honour a lot of the decades and decades of advocacy work that youth in and from care have done to get to where we are today, in the last couple of years particularly with some of the changes that happened for post-majority services in B.C. during the pandemic. We saw some of those become permanent and moved into this new iteration of the post-majority services, which is called SAJE. It used to be the agreement with young adults. There are expanded supports in that.

Sometimes there are difficult eligibility criteria. They have been changed over the last couple of years. We saw an extension in the age range.

Up until your twenty-seventh birthday, there’s been expansion in how long you can get access. Pre-pandemic, it was about around four years, if you were in school, that you could access Agreements with Young Adults, or AYA. Now it’s up to around seven-and-a-half years that you can continue to access these.

There have been some changes in wanting to acknowledge these things. It’s still what many other panellists have talked about in that siloed approach; a lot of it is focused on post‑secondary education.

When we’re speaking to the holistic health and wellness of youth aging out of care, we can’t look only at education. We have to look at all those pieces. Again, that’s what we have done in the equitable standards framework, that is, all of the pieces that are needed.

There’s been some really good changes in some of those areas. Again, sense of belonging, sense of community, continued connection to important people in your life that really help you along in those trajectories, I don’t know if there’s been many changes there necessarily.

The Chair: Thank you. Did you want to add anything, Ms. Bach?

Ms. Bach: Yes. I can add that B.C. is very progressive, at least compared to the other provinces and territories with regard to child and family services. The changes they’re making are a great example and a good start.

Again, to the post-majority support services program through ISC for youth who are transitioning out of the system and into adulthood, again, it is a good start. That’s part of the reason why there’s good awareness.

But there is so much more that needs to be done. Ms. Knutson mentioned it. There needs to be a holistic approach. You can’t put money into child and family services and then say, “That’s it, we’re good,” especially with regard to Indigenous youth and, in particular — given that I’m First Nation — First Nation youth.

When I talked about things like being from a remote community, that means it’s not just the post-majority support services program, but again, for example, the housing and infrastructure funding so there are places on reserve for youth to live.

Ms. Knutson mentioned access to education too; that’s super important as well, and ensuring that youth who are transitioning into adulthood have access to education. In the future, they will be able to have those jobs and be able to sustain themselves. Again, there is access to health care, mental health and addictions treatment and all these different sorts of aspects that need to be treated.

There is awareness, for example, that aging out of care can be a problem, and there is awareness that a lot of homeless youth are youth who were previously in the system. But I don’t feel that there is as great of an awareness, understanding or action, especially in that holistic sense. And we have the Equitable Standards report.

I also think of it maybe in a medicine wheel way too — what you need for your physical, your emotional, your intellectual and your spiritual health — and in that circle, what would fall under each of these categories as a youth who would be leaving the system.

The Chair: Thank you.

Senator Bernard: One question I have didn’t come up tonight, but it came up last week when we started this study. We talked about the child-welfare-to-prison pipeline, the fact that we know there is an overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the prison-industrial system and many of those are young adults who have been in the child welfare system.

Would either of you would like to comment on the legacy of the multi-generational harm, aging out of care and that pipeline to the prison system? Do you see links?

Ms. Knutson: Yes, I definitely think there is a link. It is hard to talk about these in isolation. I know we are particularly talking about aging out, but when we’re talking about the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in all these different systems, it’s going back to acknowledging and learning the truth of our country, the truth of the harms that have been acted against Indigenous people and how these systems have been set up to ensure the overrepresentation of Indigenous people.

We look at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, for example. It was created to police Indigenous people. Over 50% of the RCMP budget is to police Indigenous people. So when we take these other things into consideration with all that we know about the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in care with how our policing system and the criminal justice system has come to be, we can have a better and more fulsome understanding of why there is such an overrepresentation.

Indigenous people are policed at a different rate and in different ways than non-Indigenous people in this country. That relates to the higher rates that we’re seeing in the prison system, along with, when you’re in care, the lack of resources, support and all those things that relate to them also being policed at a higher rate than non-Indigenous people.

Ms. Bach: I agree. I also want to add that when I think of the child-welfare-to-prison pipeline, it’s not just a pipeline that ends once someone is in prison. It also continues, that intergenerational trauma, and as well, interacting with the child welfare system again. I think of someone who may be a youth who is in care and has transitioned out of care and into adulthood and ends up on the streets, commits some sort of crime and ends up in prison, but at the same time, they may have been in a relationship with someone and had a child with that person. What happens to that child now that their parent has been placed in prison? That child may be at higher risk of ending up in the system or may already be in the system. It then just keeps going and going.

I think it’s important for any sort of strategy, especially if it’s coming from the federal government, that’s hoping to address the issue of youth transitioning to adulthood and also youth in care in general, I really hope the strategy can address the child-welfare-to-prison pipeline and then the subsequent interactions back into the child welfare system. I’m not sure exactly what that would look like, but I think that’s an important thing to consider.

Senator Bernard: Thank you.

Senator Robinson: I, too, am a guest to this committee and really appreciate your time and your sharing of your life experiences. Thank you so much.

We heard from the first panel about children aging out and not knowing where they’re going to have their holidays and not having connection. Have you seen, outside of governments, any examples of ways to connect caring people with children and young adults in need? Is there something we can be doing to elevate and create awareness about those kinds of connections that might be made in communities?

I’ll ask it first of Ms. Knutson, unless you want me first to ask it of Ms. Bach.

Ms. Knutson: I’ll speak to some specific examples I’ve seen here in B.C. There is a very strong urban Indigenous population here in Vancouver as well as a strong youth-in-care community. I’ve seen some Indigenous women who work with youth from care who, themselves just being part of community, will have an open-door policy during Christmastime and will make a big dinner, people are just invited to come if and when they would like to, there is food and connections. That builds that community there.

As well, the youth-in-care community does what they call “misfit Christmas.” They get donations. As a youth from care, you learn a lot of different ways to survive. So they campaign different organizations and people in the community to give donations, they rent out a different hall every year, they get toys and food donated and people in and from the youth-in-care community come and volunteer to help out with that. So folks who may not have a family or somewhere else to go to — you can be in care or out of care — they can go to this “misfit Christmas” that happens every year. There is food, games and gifts for everybody.

There are a lot of examples like that within community where community is supporting one another. How do we then expand that on a larger scale and provide more support so that can happen more often and for more folks?

Ms. Bach: I agree. I’ve seen it more in that informal space. I’m trying to think right now of a formal matching program, but I’ve seen this happen more in an informal space, for example, with youth councils and with youth organizations like Assembly of Seven Generations, or A7G. I’m not entirely sure if there is an official organization like Big Brothers Big Sisters, except for youth leaving care who are in the system, who maybe don’t have a place to go, for example, for the holidays.

It’s also an important question because it goes toward that concept of building community and also a social safety net and having those relationships.

I think Ms. Doucet spoke to the committee last week, and she has a few publications about how important it is to have those connections, social safety net and relationships that are there to support you and also so you can support others and be able to have that type of community that’s there.

Senator Robinson: Thank you.

The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I want to take this opportunity to thank both of you for appearing before us and sharing your inspirational stories with us. Your testimony will be very helpful as we go forward with this study.

(The committee adjourned.)