The province parented me on-and-off from age six to 16, when I elected to leave foster care a couple years earlier than normal. This decade was gruelling and soul crushing, peppered with the odd bright spots.
But it has given me a unique insight into the foster care system and its impact on my life. I do not presume this alone would make me an expert on the system. However, after serving on a regional Children’s Aid board of directors for eight years, helping to develop legislation that is reducing youth homelessness, and founding an advocacy organization aimed at improving life outcomes for youth from care, I have rounded out my lived experience in the system.
During my time leading the Child Welfare Political Action Committee (PAC), I have met some of the most resilient and credentialed people around — from the first Indigenous forensic pathologist in Canada to award-winning comedians to business owners, doctors and lawyers — all from foster care.
In case you are now tempted to conclude that the foster care system works, please keep a couple things in mind. Research confirms these types of outcomes are exceptions. That is not to say foster care produces poor life outcomes; it is possible that outcomes could have been worse without intervention.
But the system certainly fails to level life outcomes with those not raised in care. Typically, after care, foster kids experience: low academic achievement, poverty, homelessness, criminal justice system involvement, early parenthood, poor physical and mental health, and loneliness.
Even many of the so-called “success stories” experience hardships after care. For example, I dropped out of high school before finding my way back to post secondary education, (I am now a PhD candidate at Western University), lived in poverty, and experienced housing instability. How many of us are able to overcome these insurmountable barriers in the long-term is unknown because there is no tracking of life outcomes after care.
Instead, the government continues to spend millions of dollars on preventable social problems as a result of pushing foster kids prematurely into adulthood at age 18.
Nevertheless, statistically we know 10 per cent of any population will become outliers on both ends of the spectrum — for better or for worse. According to some estimates, in Ontario alone there are over 100,000 former Crown wards. Thus, the math predicts 10,000 of us will “make it” through a combination of luck and skill no matter what.
When I think about our child welfare systems across the country, I wonder how many of the leadership positions in the sector are filled by people with lived experience? Indeed, there is at a minimum a pool of 10,000 outliers in Ontario with lived experience.
A simple solution would be to recruit people with lived experience in care to leadership positions within the sector. There is no need to compromise any criteria for necessary credentials, as there are many talented people from care.
In Ontario, the community oversight boards that govern agencies are an excellent access point. Anyone interested in serving vulnerable children and families can apply to serve on these skill-based boards. However, in the history of child welfare, there has been only one board chair with lived experience in care — in Windsor Essex.
This month, Simcoe Muskoka will follow suit. I will be the first board chair in 126 years in the region who was raised in care leading the $50 million agency with 400 employees. Fortuitously, I was also raised by this very agency. This is equity and inclusion in practice.
Foster care is tough and no one knows this better than those who lived it. I encourage the child welfare industry countrywide to include those with lived experiences in meaningful leadership positions.
Similarly, if you have lived experience in care, consider joining your local agency board in Ontario. We cannot take issue with the system on one hand and withhold our wisdom on the other. The sector needs our leadership — 40 years of academic research on youth outcomes and a century of troubling history prove it.
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