EDMONTON — Young adults previously under government care in Alberta will soon be cut off of financial assistance from children’s services at age 22, two years sooner than before.

Youth who age out of government care still have access to financial assistance programs through children’s services past the age of 18. But the Alberta government is dropping the maximum age of eligibility from age 24 to 22 starting next spring, in a move expected to affect approximately 500 young Albertans.

Rebecca Schulz, minister of children’s services, told a standing committee Thursday that the new policy will be in place by April 2020.

There are currently 2,200 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 getting financial assistance from the province, and the new policy will mean about a quarter of those would now have to start applying for support through adult programs.

“This is in careful consideration of the data,” Schulz said to the committee, made up of UCP and NDP MLAs, on Thursday. “We saw quite a sharp decline of uptake in the program at the age of 22. So we are reducing the age of eligibility from 24 to 22.”

Schulz said she’s been working with Minister of Community and Social Services Rajan Sawhney to ensure they can access programs like Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH), income support and Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD).

No one will be grandfathered in, meaning people who are already 22, and who expected to receive funding until they turn 24, will not receive funding past April through the program, officially called Support and Financial Assistance Agreements (SFAA).

It’s unclear how much money the government estimates it’ll save, nor could they provide an estimate of how many of the 500 people would qualify for adult programs.

“It’s not about savings,” Schulz said during an interview with Star Edmonton. “It’s ensuring that these young adults are being served by the program that best meets their needs.”

Furthermore, not all supports for that age range from children’s services will be cut — Schulz said youth up to age 24 can still access mentorship and the Advancing Futures bursary, which helps those who have been in care cover their post-secondary costs.

But social workers say the move is short sighted, since some of the adult programs the government offers, especially PDD, are already underfunded. The change could also throw a vulnerable person’s life into turmoil.

“Some of these young people, on the PDD side of things, have been eligible since they turned 18 and children’s services has been trying to move them over but there hasn’t been anywhere to put them,” said Chris Tortorelli, a former associate director with children’s services as of September.

“The government has been their parent and is now saying, ‘we’re done.’”

Young people in care are often facing difficulties in life that hinder a smooth transition to adulthood, said Peter Choate, an associate professor of social work at Mount Royal University. Many of them are also Indigenous, he said.

For the 500 people impacted, he said the move could be “potentially very bad news.”

“What they haven’t done is told us about those 500 people so that we know what their future is going to look like,” Choate said.

While some could be choosing not to opt into the program by age 22, Choate said there are likely some who still rely heavily on it.

Still, the supports that PDD, AISH and income support offer don’t measure up to what the 500 youth in care need, said Tortorelli.

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For a young person to have a program drawn up for them in a separate funding structure, once they’re off children’s services financial support in April, could take upwards of three months, she added.

“If we’re looking at 500 young people across the province that need that support, even if it’s only half of them that require PDD, that will be a significant challenge,” Tortorelli said.

“Some of those young people will not qualify for PDD and they will be young people whose cognitive function and their ability to care for themselves is compromised.”

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