This week takes place in Quebec on the 19and edition of School Perseverance Days. A collective opportunity to highlight the efforts of all students who cling to school and who manage to overcome personal challenges, learning difficulties and all the vagaries of life that undermine their educational success. An opportunity that also allows us to highlight the important work of stakeholders in teaching environments, but also the invaluable contribution of extracurricular resources such as organizations fighting against dropping out and alternative education environments, of which we are a part. .
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Unfortunately, for thousands of young adults in Quebec who lived until the age of 18 under the protection of the DPJ, school perseverance is still not acquired. Researchers from the EJDeP group informed us in a report published in February 2020 that by the age of 19, only 24.8% of young people leaving placement had obtained their secondary school diploma (DES), compared to 77 .4% for all young people excluding DYP. It is quite easy to explain how these young people’s ability to engage in school is affected by the traumas they face during their stays under the care of the DYP.
On the other hand, it is astonishing to note at what level the collective will and the legislative provisions – which until then had made it possible to protect them and support their development – are completely abandoned when these vulnerable young people reach majority.
As numerous experts, organizations and young people called to testify during the hearings of the Special Commission on the Rights of Children and Youth Protection have reported, responding to the complex needs of these young adults at the end of their the DYP is undeniably inadequate.
The Commission’s report clearly indicates in Chapter 8 that it is necessary to maintain the support and accompaniment offered to these young people during their transition to autonomy. To this end, the President of the Special Commission, Ms.me Régine Laurent, moreover, indicated to parliamentarians during the special consultations on Bill 15 of February 8 that it was necessary to go further and ensure that support for the transition to adult life is included and provided for in the legislative framework. It indicates that specific assistance revenues must be provided, that we must stop working in silos and that we must broaden the scope of interventions by mobilizing the expertise developed by organizations that are specifically interested in education. and the transition to adulthood of young people in great difficulty.
At present, young people from youth centers certainly do not have access to the educational and psychosocial support necessary for the difficulties that they must bear alone on their shoulders. For them, housing issues, difficulties in accessing mental health care and the lack of training environments capable of dealing with their difficulties and learning disabilities are killing their dreams.
If Quebec persists in ignoring the ineffectiveness of the structures in place with regard to the crying needs of these young people, it will continue to deprive itself of invaluable human potential and to bear the disproportionate costs abundantly demonstrated by research.
During this week of school perseverance, our wish is that government actors choose these very vulnerable young people, that they recognize them in the laws and that they give themselves the means to invest in social innovations, adapted schools and continuity services, which will make it possible once and for all to put an end to the situation of school exclusion experienced by young adults at the end of their stay at the DYP.