Calls for Quebec to increase support for those aging out of youth protection

Community leaders are calling on the Quebec government to do more to help those aging out of youth protection.

Two years after the Laurent Commission’s report made several recommendations to improve youth protection in the province, community members say very little has been done to help those aging out of the system.

“For youth aging out of the system right now in the province of Quebec, it’s really a crisis. A lot of young people don’t have access to resources,” said Amanda Keller, the founder of C.A.R.E. Jeunesse, which aims to assist youth after they leave youth protection.

“For most people, they have a party for their 18th birthday and they sleep in the same bed and they have the same access to supports.

But for young people that age out of the system, they’re often cut off from all of the supports that they have.”

Ursy Ledrich, who was placed into the system at 10 years old, describes the reality for the nearly 2,000 youth aging out in the province.

“Tomorrow is your birthday. Prepare yourself and you’re going to go,” he recalled.
Ledrich, a member of the collective Ex-placé DPJ, says compared to other provinces in Canada, Quebec is lacking in support needed.

“There’s some structures in every cities, in every way to help these children,” he said. “But here there’s nothing. In Quebec there’s nothing, no funding, no nothing, no support.”

‘They have no place to go’

Lesley Hill, one of the 12 commissioners on the Laurent Commission, is one of the many sounding the alarm.

“They have no place to go,” said Hill. “They’re not functional in their lives yet. They don’t have the supports necessary. They’re just hanging around on the corners of the street.

“How many young people are on the street because they don’t have support?”

Hill says 18-year-olds still need support.

“We still have expectations as a society on these young people for the kids who have had the hardest life,” said Hill. “They’re supposed to be autonomous at age 18 and fly away and be functional and have good lives. It’s just not realistic.”

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• Calls for Quebec to support aging out of youth protection

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Recommendations made by the commission include providing housing support, funding and community support for education, and the implementation of a post placement support program for those over the age of 18.

Those are all things Ledrich says he needed, but never got.

“I’ve been I’m at university, but I did it by myself,” he said. “I didn’t have nothing. I really hoped that I had some support someone to just tell me ‘OK try this, go here, don’t do that just.’ Someone I can talk too, but I don’t have none of that.”

Partial eligibility despite recommendation 

The Quebec Ministry of Health And Social Services has updated the province’s existing PQJ or Youth Qualification Program, which supports the most vulnerable youth and those at risk of marginalization, to the age of 25 now.

But contrary to what the Laurent Commission recommended, not everyone is eligible.

“It’s sometimes difficult for young people to enter into it, especially if they are entering into the system when they’re 15 or 16 as an example,” said Keller. “Many times they won’t qualify. They have to be referred at a particular time;

Keller says after numerous reports and inquiries into the system, there have yet to be any meaningful changes.

“You can’t keep ignoring the issue of youth aging out of the system because it’s very expensive to society, but it’s also causing young people, our most vulnerable children, to suffer,” she said. “And why, when we’re such a heavily resourced society, is that necessary?”

WATCH: Quebec’s youth protection staff asking for change