Young Parents Wraparound Pilot

About the Young Parents Wraparound program formerly funded by the CCAF

This pilot program supported children and their pregnant and young parents to create strong, healthy resilient families. The program helped young parents with setting goals, making plans, taking positive actions and building up a support system, and their children to reach healthy developmental milestones and successfully transition to school. The program also aimed to reduce the disproportionate admission of Black children into child welfare. Youth received individualized support from two Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto (CCAS) facilitators on site at Rosalie Hall, an accredited children’s mental health facility in Scarborough.

How it helps:

Helping vulnerable children by supporting young mothers

When young parents struggle, so do their children. Without resources or family to turn to for help, young parents have higher rates of mental health issues, repeat pregnancies, substance use and domestic violence due to lack of income, education, social support and issues like low self-esteem. When we wrap much-needed support around a young family, it helps parents and children to thrive.

Through the initiative, facilitators would regularly meet one-on-one with disadvantaged young parents to get to know them, their needs, goals and strengths, and to connect them to community resources to successfully move forward in life. The workers supported young parents achieve goals such as:

• Finding child care subsidy programs
• Mapping out a plan for completing education or getting a job
• Getting help from a housing worker to find affordable housing 
• Driving youth to medical appointments during pregnancy or after birth
• Setting up funding for driving lessons
• Figuring out how to budget

“Wraparound was about coming up with a proper plan so that the young person feels connected to their community, and then they know who they can go to in the future to address challenges,” notes Michelle Cross, a CCAS facilitator who was involved with the pilot project.

Your impact:

You helped more than 60 young families receive personalized support

Surveys completed by participants showed that 100% of youth agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with this program.

Note: This pilot project is now complete and no longer being funded.