BC Representative for Children and Youth released “A Parent’s Duty: Government’s Obligation to Youth Transitioning into Adulthood. “This report is about those youth. It’s about good intentions gone unrealized, and systems that look much better on paper than in reality. It’s about supports that are notoriously scarce, inequitable, rigid, and a poor fit for so many of the diverse young people who turn 19 while in government care. It’s about practice and policy that are out of line with current research, and the ongoing legacy of colonization on new generations of First Nations, Métis, Inuit and Urban Indigenous youth, who are 17 times more likely to be in government care in B.C. than non-Indigenous youth.

Recommendations:

1. Extend and improve transition planning
2. Provide ongoing adult guidance and support by implementing dedicated youth transition workers through community agencies
3. Ensure continuing post-majority financial support
4. Consider an extension of voluntary residential care
5. Provide additional dedicated housing for youth aging out of care
6. Provide an enhanced range of trauma-informed and culturally appropriate mental health and substance use services for young people transitioning from care into adulthood
7. Collect longitudinal data and evaluate service