Youth Panel: Insights into successful supports and services and where the gaps lie.

- Programs should be developed with a broader mandate (i.e. unemployed and out of school) that would include youth in order to better meet their needs.
- Leaving care (CAS, CJ’s) often translates into a loss of resources that should be addressed.
- “A foundation to independence”: youth need to be able to make their own choices at their own rhythm and not having workers telling them what they should or shouldn’t be doing.
- Stability is key.
- Parent counseling and family services are effective.
- There needs to be more of a focus on developing self-motivation.
- There is a lack of programming and resources in emergency shelters. It is important that youth can access many services at once, the sense of one-stop shopping. This can be achieved by both geographic location and partnerships with different agencies in order to offer youth the best and specialized services.
- Funding is the key to offer better follow-up and continued support which translates into youth having more options.
- Youth need to feel that they are valued, heard and taken seriously as was found through a video project by SIDA/AIDS
(http://www.sida-aidsmoncton.com/iwhtm.php)

Human Rights Solutions to Homelessness:

Keynote speaker Miloon Kothari: former Special Reporter on Adequate Housing for the United Nations Human Rights Council
Kothari offered various solutions that will be outlined in more detail this January/February in an advanced version released on http://www.ohchr.org/

1. More legal recognition to the right to adequate housing
2. Comprehensive and coordinated national housing policy
3. A national strategy timeline that has realistic goals
4. More social housing programs
5. Implementing anti-discriminatory legislation
6. Rise in social assistance payments
7. Collaboration and coordination at all levels of government
8. A national strategy of affordable housing that is permanent and sustainable with adequate funding
9. Large scale building of affordable housing
10. An official, national definition of homelessness that leads to a coordinated national strategy

A National Conference

Bienvenue!

Raising the Roof (http://raisingtheroof.org/) is hosting, in partnership with a Conference Steering Committee that represents youth and youth serving agencies across Canada. This conference aims to bring together people who have a stake in youth homelessness.

The conference goals:

1. To help identify how youth, agencies, researchers, corporations and others can work together to address the issue of youth homelessness
2. To bring diverse stakeholders together to exchange knowledge and develop plans for collective action
3. To gather input into and endorsement of a National Strategy to Solve Youth Homelessness

On behalf of En Marge 12-17 (http://enmarge1217.ca/) I had the opportunity to come to the conference in order to learn, teach and participate. I hope to bring back and share knowledge, best practices and solutions to our organization and to our community.

This blog will act as a tool for you, chers colleagues. Being sent to a conference should translate in bringing back the knowledge and shaing it with co-workers and the organization. However, it is not always the case, considering there is not always time for a mini-conference post conference workshop.

Je vais vous informer avec ce BLOG, pour que vous puissiez lire et apprendre tous que j’ai appris dans vos moments disponibles.

à la prochaine!