Voices from the periphery: Prospects and challenges for the homeless youth service sector

Abstract

As a result of its focus on transitionally-aged youth (16–24), the homeless youth service sector finds itself on the periphery of both the children's service sectors, represented by children's mental health, child welfare, education and youth justice, and the adult service sectors that seek to address the varying needs of adults for social assistance and mental health services. Based on an extensive literature review and a series of interviews with service providers, stakeholders and youth within this sector, in the Central East Service Region of the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services, the authors synthesize core themes and issues that help to situate the current prospects and challenges facing this sector. Feedback from informants positioned the concept of “relationship” as a central feature of both service provision and service use on the part of youth. The Central East Region is a mixed urban, suburban and semi-rural region situated in close proximity to Canada's largest urban centre, Toronto. With a population of nearly 2 million, the Region is often perceived as diverse, encompassing a series of highly affluent commuter communities, relatively isolated rural and small town communities and urban working class communities. While social issues such as homelessness and poverty have long been recognized in urban communities, they have only recently been acknowledged as community concerns in the geographically large suburban areas of this region.