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Kamloops advocate appreciative of province extending youth supports but says there's more work to be done

Aging-out date extended

The provincial government has extended the cut-off date for young people who are about to age out of foster care.

The deadline has changed from Sept. 30, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

Katherine McParland, executive director of A Way Home Kamloops, was passionately advocating for the provincial government to extend the date, in order to offer relief to youth aging out of the foster care system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I really appreciate that our government took the step of invest in the most vulnerable people in our community," McParland tells Castanet. "I think it shows that they were listening to the voices of marginalized youth and were able to create changes that are unprecedented for people aging out of foster care."

The government's first COVID-19 emergency measures were announced in March; they extended the foster care cut-off date to three months past the deadline. In June, the province once again extended the date another three months to Sept. 30.

Without the latest extension, McParland estimates that around 500 B.C. youth would have been at risk of homelessness.

The provincial government announced on Sunday (Sept. 20) that youth in government care will be able to stay where they are and those who have recently aged out of care will receive extra support.

“This pandemic is not over. I want youth in care to be assured that they will be able to continue receiving the supports they count on and won’t have the added stress of aging out during these challenging times,” says Katrine Conroy, Minister of Children and Family Development, in a press release.

“Especially right now, youth in our care need and deserve to feel supported and safe and our government wants to make sure that happens,” Conroy adds.

Youth currently living in foster care, contracted residential agencies or with relatives through the extended family program, will be able to stay in their placements past their 19th birthday — and youth on independent living agreements and youth agreements will continue to receive financial support past their 19th birthday — until March 31, 2021.

The government says that for the next year, it will also maintain emergency measures that give youth easier access to life-skills supports and rehabilitation supports through the Agreements with Young Adults program. This includes allowing them to join life-skills programs and cultural learning options, as well as online programming, with fewer required hours of participation per week.

The province is also offering flexibility for young adults to access mental health and rehabilitative supports as of Oct. 1, 2020.

"There's still a lot more work to be done," explains McParland. "With this extension of emergency measures, we can anticipate that approximately 1,000 youth will be aging out on March 31, 2021, so the sector and government really need to be working together during this time to develop housing plans for each of these young people so that they can age out into community where they can find a sense of belonging with stable housing to prevent youth homelessness."



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