In this episode, we are here with first voice advocates and Child Welfare professionals to have an informative conversation around the gaps and barriers in mental health provision for youth in care during the covid-19 pandemic. Lisa Tomlinson is the Director of Services for Toronto CAS and Dimple is a nurse navigator with expertise in mental health. With them here today we hope to increase our own understanding of trauma and how our current system engages in our recovery or how it furthers our experiences of trauma from a clinical and operative perspective. By doing this we hope to identify some of the problems to begin to bring about solutions.

Troy Elleston: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-bio-stu5/

Lisa Tomlinson: [email protected]

Website: www.torontocas.ca

Instagram/Twitter: CAS_Toronto

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/children%27s-aid-society-of-toronto/?originalSubdomain=ca

Featuring the OACAS mental health advisory, today’s episode examines the vital intersection between mental health, youth in care and barriers to care. Today, Project Outsiders turns a new leaf by extending our dialogue to peers, social workers and advocates alike! Please welcome Kiana, Aiden, Bianca, Samuel and Rose in our thoughtful exploration as we bridge the gaps between Youth In Care and the complex systems we rely on.

Contact info for guests

Byanka: https://www.instagram.com/byanka.petrin/

Kia: Kia is speaking at the ocac engagement tomorrow morning at 1155 on the OCAC (Ontario children's advocacy coalition) Facebook page live! Its for youth in care day

● Instagram: spitkisses

● Facebook: kia maria lovegood

Christina: [email protected]

● christinaloc.co

● https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinaloc/

Rose: rosetwentyseven (on all socials)

Aidan: [email protected]

Samuel: [email protected]

Our Info

https://www.projectoutsiders.com

Socials & Podcast - @projectoutsiders / @project.outsiders

For all the links: linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Trailer Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65XZ5XQzacc&t=1s

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts to our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

For our season finale, we sat down and had a conversation with Samuel Ashirbekov. He is a trans man and an aspiring advocate for youth in care. Samuel shares with us what it was like transitioning into his new identity while in the child welfare system. He shares the obstacles he faced before, during, and after encountering me (Chanice) in the group home we both lived in. Sam and I both lived in the same group home for a period of time and we reflect on our different experiences within the same space. In this conversation, we learn about what it is like having the system paint your identity and what are some of the current gaps when it comes to youth identifying as a part of the LGBTQ2S+ community. We hope you have enjoyed the first season and have taken something away from each conversation. We ask you to continue to support our movement and content by liking, sharing, and promoting it on your platforms. More is coming soon but until then, we hope you take care and stay safe.

If you want to partner with Samuel here is an email you can contact him by [email protected]

Check out the full episode on the CYC podcast available on Spotify  Google play and many other platforms.

Follow our socials

https://linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Instagram

Twitter 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts on our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

Website – www.projectoutsiders.com

Want to know what programs are available in your community? Check out our blog. We are constantly updating our page with new local programs, news, and policy changes. You can also learn about your rights and supports that are afforded to you by the government. Click here to find out more. (here will be a hyperlink)

Welcome back to Project Outsiders. If you are returning, thank you so much for coming back and tuning into our podcast. We really appreciate all of  your support and joining us along on our journey to improving the foster care system. For those who are new here, Welcome to the Foster Care Experience Podcast. We are a youth lead social organization trying to bridge the gap between youth in care with decision makers. We are all youth from care who have been pushed by our experiences to ensure we see changes to a disconnected system. We are all incredibly passionate advocates and activists and want to create paths and opportunities for youth in care.

Today we are talking about permanency within child welfare. Youth in care experience abandonment, neglect, and isolation -  this shapes their interaction in the world well after they leave care. The instability from moving around and the drastic feeling of abandonment youth feel once they turn 18 or 21 leave many youth feeling worthless. We want to learn how youth views the idea of permanency and its impact of attaining it even later in life. To help us with this discussion we have Vivian Patruno.

Vivian is undergoing permanency through the NeverTooLate program in partnership with PARC (Pape, Adolescent Resource Centre) She connected with her family when she was 23. What Vivian needs the world to know is that everyonedeserves permanency and stability.

Check out the full episode on the CYC podcast available on Spotify  Google playas well as all other platforms.

Follow our socials:

https://linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Instagram

Twitter 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts to our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

Website – www.projectoutsiders.com

Want to know what programs are available in your community? Check out our blog. We are constantly updating our page with new local programs, news, and policy changes. You can also learn about your rights and supports that are afforded to you by the government.

Sponsorships: off for this episode

Welcome back to Project Outsiders! If you are returning, thank you so much for coming back and tuning into our podcast. We really appreciate all of  your support and joining us along on our journey to improving the foster care system. For those who are new here, Welcome to the Foster Care Experience Podcast. We are a youth lead social organization that is trying to bridge the gap between youth in care with decision makers. We are all youth from care who have been pushed by our experience to ensure we see changes to a disconnected system. We are all incredibly passionate advocates and activists and want to create paths and opportunities for youth in care.

In today's conversation we want to talk about mental health and the use of substances. For a lot of youth in care that is the number one tool we would resort to as a way to cope with our situation. It is not often that we have people in our life that are able to teach us healthy coping skills so we go with the ones taught to us by our peers who are also struggling. This becomes a complicated cycle to get out of once it has been habituated into your daily routine. When mental health becomes more of an issue the more easy it is for youth to fall deeper into an addiction. There are a lot of stigmas that come with having an addiction and today we want to learn more about how to prevent and overcome them. Here to tell us about her journey overcoming a global pandemic is Keona Sehmi.

(Keona’s Bio)

Keona Sehmi is a first voice advocate and participates in numerous committees as a youth advisor. Some of the committees she sits on includes the youth for change steering committee with OACAS, youth said through Halton CAS, She is an advisor for OACAS covid-19 mental health toolkit, and she is a peer mentor for the futures life skills and mentorship program. She plans to take a year off after she graduates for self growth and recovery, but plans to go to school for nursing to become a psychiatric nurse at mohawk.

Check out the full episode on the CYC podcast available on Spotify  Google play as well as all other platforms.

Follow our socials:

https://linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Instagram

Twitter 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts to our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

Website – www.projectoutsiders.com

Want to know what programs are available in your community? Check out our blog. We are constantly updating our page with new local programs, news, and policy changes. You can also learn about your rights and supports that are afforded to you by the government.

Children’s Aid societies are beginning to recognize the importance of the inclusion of youth voices and participating in conversations surrounding the barriers and areas of needed improvement within the child welfare system. We are seeing more collaborations between youth and agencies to develop a strategy to redesign Children's Aid, along with putting in place proper safety outlets for youth to safely advocate for themselves.  First voice advocates are youth with first hand experience in child welfare who are driven to see changes within the system. One tool which was developed for the youth was the Advocacy office, which is closed (officially closed back in 2018). That impact weighs greatly on many people from care, especially current youth. Today we have Christopher Cottle who worked at the advocacy office as a youth Communications Amplifier and is here to speak on his experience and give his insight into what he feels needs to change.

Christopher’s plugs

http://www.cycpodcast.org/

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/risingyouth-podcast/id1494492980

rising youth and CYC

Check out the full episode on the CYC podcast available on Spotify  Google play and many other platforms.

Follow our socials

https://linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Instagram

Twitter 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts to our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

The last known residential home for Indigenous people closed down in 1996, “it wasn’t that long ago” says Kia Lesage. A lot of damage has been done on the indegenious community and we can see its reflection in the child welfare system. It may not come as a surprise to you but Child Protection Services look very different the further you go from the city or more densely populated areas. The programming and supports are very limited in rural areas and youth are heavily affected by its unavailability. Things like addiction and mental health programs are scarce and these necessary programs are more needed than children’s Aid  intervention and separation of children from their community. Today we hear and learn from kia who shares her story and insight to solutions.

Check out the full episode on the CYC podcast available on Spotify  Google play as well as all other platforms.

Follow our socials

https://linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Instagram

Twitter 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts to our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

Website – www.projectoutsiders.com

Want to know what programs are available in your community? Check out our blog. We are constantly updating our page with new local programs, news, and policy changes. You can also learn about your rights and supports that are afforded to you by the government. 

When an individual navigates the world with a physical disability they always need to be adapting to the obstacles put in their path in order to continue to survive. Today we want to learn about how people with disabilities experience the child welfare system. What are the barriers they face due to their disability, and do they have enough services and support in place to accommodate for their needs? Gabe Brokennshire is a former youth in care and lives with cerebral palsy. This was a very eye opening conversation and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Our journey has only begun and we want to learn about what step we need to take to create effective change. Cheyanne Ratnam educates us around the steps she took to become the successful advocate that she is today. Having the right mentality is important when wanting to create effective changes to the system. Although our experience in care was difficult and the actions of our legal guardian (the government) has been questionable over the years, at the end of the day they are our allies and we need to work together if we want to redesign the Child Welfare System.  Cheyanne’s Story is a story of strength, resilience, and passionate commitment to change. We hope once you have listened to this episode you walk away feeling empowered to continue your path to growth.

Education is more than schools and degrees. For youth in care, to be educated means to be prepared and equipped to handle complex life situations. When you have a time limit on the support given to you to survive you begin to experience a lot of pressure to make sure you are fully prepared once the support stops. For youth in and from care, life skills are a lot more important than math or biology and mentors are more valuable to us than teachers. Chistina Loc (our Social Media and Marketing Manager) is a leader, a mentor, an advocate, and a good friend who is here to speak with us about her journey with education.

Christina’s socials

instagram - https://www.instagram.com/_locc/

linkedIn -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinaloc/

website - https://www.christinaloc.co/

Her work with OECT/CAS: https://www.inittogetheryouth.org/

Check out the full episode on the CYC podcast available on Spotify  Google play and many other platforms.

Follow our socials

https://linktr.ee/project.outsiders

Instagram

Twitter 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Want to know how to get involved or support our mission? Subscribe to our patron to get exclusive content and discounts to our merchandise.

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/projectoutsiders

Website – www.projectoutsiders.com

Want to know what programs are available in your community? Check out our blog. We are constantly updating our page with new local programs, news, and policy changes. You can also learn about your rights and supports that are afforded to you by the government. Click here to find out more. (here will be hyperlink)