The key to reducing youth homelessness? Researcher, ask them what they need

Melanie Doucet remembers being in the foster care system in New Brunswick in the 1990s, needing social support but finding little help when she turned 19 and left the system.

He understands the need to listen to young people in care who face similar challenges and are often homeless.

Doucet is an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at McGill University, based in Montreal.

While presenting the results of his work, Finding Our Way HomeAt a recent forum on youth homelessness in Saint John, he said youth who are “aging out” in foster care or group homes and without readily available social support to help them should be invited into the conversation.

“Whether you’re working with them on the front lines, whether you’re a decision maker, a politician, listen to what young people say they need,” Doucet said. he said.

“Invite them to the tables where you sit and treat them as experts,” he said, speaking to an audience of front-line organizations and city residents.

Doucet’s report It says homeless youth are 200 times more likely to have previously been involved in the child welfare system than the general population, and more than a third of youth experience homelessness within a few years of being left without care.

“Young people leaving care tend to start their adulthood living below the poverty line and rely much more on welfare than their peers,” he said.

His work used the “photovoice” method, in which he had Halifax youth experiencing homelessness tell their stories using photographs and their own words.

“I think many of the findings from this study can also be applied here in Saint John. I think young people just want their voices to be heard and to be treated with urgency and priority.” said Doucet.

failed by system

Doucet’s results offer harsh commentary from young people who say they have been failed by the systems intended to support them. Her images and words expressed her feeling of being “dropped” by social services and passed from worker to worker as she struggled with mental health and addiction.

One 2023 “point in time” snapshot In Saint John, the Council on Human Development said about 30 percent of people surveyed over a two-day period in the state’s three largest cities had lived in foster care before experiencing homelessness.

Doucet’s own foster care experiences were on the Acadian Peninsula and informed her research.

“I went into care as a teenager and by the time I came of age I was old, so my experience really informs the work I do,” she says.

“I wish my social worker had heard me. I had no idea what to expect as I started college on my own. I didn’t know how to budget, how much anything would cost. I didn’t even know what my credit score was. I didn’t know how to file taxes.”

While much has changed since her time in the system in the 90s, she says these are common experiences of young people in care.

A seat at the table

The Youth Care Center is a Saint John non-profit organization that provides youth support services, including a shelter called Beacon Cove for individuals ages 16 to 19. It is funded by the Ministry of Social Development.

Executive Director Karen Cummings said she sees the importance of listening to young people in her work.

“You don’t magically have a birthday, you turn 19 and suddenly you don’t have supports,” he said.

The center has built a formal structure that helps connect young people with services and advocates for their needs, as well as offering case management for post-19s.

“The young people we work with have not stopped reaching out to us, contacting us, asking for guidance, asking for support, asking for resources,” he said.

“When they left our agency, they kept coming back.”

The center is also working to build supportive housing for 19- to 25-year-olds.

“Young people are the primary voice on this issue… We need to ask them to come to the table and help create these solutions,” he said.