Change Can Happen. Profiles in community leadership: Sarah Stewart

Central City Foundation is once again celebrating examples of extraordinary community leadership. We are highlighting the dedication and determination of those whose support for community-led solutions helped people in our inner city and beyond and have demonstrated that change can happen in our community. As part of this celebration, we have asked each of our profiled leaders to share with us their thoughts on leadership, community, and their relationship with Central City Foundation.

Sarah Stewart, Executive Director, Aunt Leah’s Place

Sarah has built on Aunt Leah’s legacy of caring and has helped change the landscape for young people in foster care, built more spaces and better services for new mothers and has started the organization’s journey towards truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

Q:  How does your organization help address the conditions faced by people in the inner city?

We see our work at entry and exit points of the child welfare system. Preventing youth aging out of care from becoming homeless and keeping families together who are at risk of losing custody of their children. It is extremely important preventative work. Unfortunately, our child welfare system is still being used as a tool of colonialism and racial discrimination. As a parent myself and most parents in Canada, we don’t strive for our 19-year-olds to become homeless on their 19th birthday. Kids who age out of the foster care system are overrepresented in every homeless count. The foster care system has become a pathway to homelessness. Not only does Aunt Leah’s work to prevent homelessness for the folks accessing our program, we also take an equity stance in our program design and work to provide services that youth coming from parented homes or with family privilege receive.

Q:  How would you describe some of the common lived experiences, systemic inequalities/inequities and other challenges faced by the people you work with?

Indigenous, LGBTQ+ and newcomers are overrepresented in the child welfare system. This speaks to the long historical relationship that the child welfare system has with colonization and racism. We are working with moms who are the first in three generations to raise and parent their children and not have the government take their children away. Common lived experiences for youth in and from care would be experiencing significant trauma in their lives and interacting with government systems that are not trauma-informed. For youth in care, having a government system as your parent means having multiple social workers, multiple “placements,” and not a lot of planning or goal setting past your 19th birthday, whereas young people coming from parented homes are being housed, fed and cared for well into their late 20’s. Aunt Leah’s works to provide a continuum of support (Housing, Education, Lifeskills and Employment) for youth and moms that do not screen people out based on age.

Q:  How would you describe the importance of community connections and a sense of acceptance and belonging for the people you work with?

At Aunt Leah’s, one of our key performance indicators is the shared sense of community. It’s absolutely critical that the individuals we work with develop a sense of belonging at Aunt Leah’s because most people who walk through our doors are not used to feeling connected to others and have been let down by so many people prior to connecting with Aunt Leah’s. For our families being pushed to the margins, we find many moms are scared to ask for help, fearing that this will be seen as a reason to remove their children. There’s a false narrative that is told to our families and youth that they need to be “independent” and “resilient” and be able to do things on their own. Meanwhile, their parented peers are tapping into a network of supports and connections due to their family privilege. We work to make sure folks walking into Aunt Leah’s feel safe and have opportunities to connect with each other and have support in building their community of support for themselves. 

Q:  Looking ahead, can you share with us some of your thoughts about where you see that change can happen?

We’re actually seeing change happen now with the child welfare system, with young people able to access supports and services up to their 27th birthday. This includes things like education and advanced training through the tuition waiver program for youth who have been in care.

At Aunt Leah’s, we are seeing more individuals with educational goals. Folks we are working with now see post-secondary school as an actual option due to the tuition waiver and additional financial support. While this is incredibly positive, housing continues to be an ongoing barrier. A specific provincial and national youth housing strategy is needed that specifically highlights guaranteed housing and financial support for youth aging out of care.

Additional change is needed around how we provide preventative and well-being supports for families. The current child welfare system has been referred to as the Family Policing System, with much of its resources being dedicated to investigations and removals. Aunt Leah’s Thresholds Program demonstrates that by providing and investing in housing and supports, families can thrive together.

Q:  What are some examples that give you hope for a better future for the people with who you work?

We see young folks with lived experiences who are feeling more and more empowered to make change. They are recognizing that they are an important part of the change that needs to happen. Youth voice is a big part of the work we do at Aunt Leah’s. Youth are engaged at all levels. They inform policy. They have a voice speaking to the government.

Q:  How would you describe the value of developing relationships and collaboration in your work and organizations like Central City Foundation?

Partnering and collaborating with other organizations like CCF, who recognize the importance of investing in prevention work and valuing the folks we serve, is extremely important. CCF has provided us with stability so Aunt Leah’s can spend time designing a continuum of services that are trauma-informed and striving to build equity. 

Q:  Do you have a call to action for our CCF community that you would like to share?

We believe there needs to be a provincial and national youth-specific housing plan and strategy. Kids aging out of the foster care system have some unique housing needs. Without a specific plan, we continue to see far too many kids homeless. We believe there also needs to be a basic living income for kids aging out of care until age 25. This would provide the safety and assurances of income so they can continue to learn, grow and put their lives together versus focusing on survival only.

Most importantly, we believe these projects and programs need to be protected and enshrined in legislation. This will ensure that services for youth in care will be safe from interference from future governments.