It Sucks! For me when I was living in care, I would always try and tell everyone that I was ready for adulthood, and that I couldn’t wait to be out of the social system. At times, I would think that it would be a breeze, and that the freedom would be totally worth it! It’s not! It totally sucks! You may think that an adult has more time, and more freedom to do whatever they want, but you really don’t. It’s like saying a lion has more freedom once its placed back into its natural habitat. Well guess what. Once that lion goes into the wild for its first time, its gonna be eaten by hyena’s! I swear. It’s possibly the worst thing ever! Growing up.

In the group home that I lived in, I had it good. I had a meal ready for me everyday. I didn’t have to worry about paying any major bills. I had a curfew, but hey, totally helps keep the hangovers away. A N D, I had an allowance. Mind you if the allowance was a little bit more than just eleven dollars a week I would’ve been happy, but some things never change do they. With all the bills I have now, I’d be lucky if I got $44 dollars at the end of the month to spend on free will. All of a sudden your tossed in a savannah being hunted by gazelles, with no escape on the horizon. You start paying bills with numbers more than 3 digits, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your youth account becomes an adult account, and then you start having to keep a balance in the bank just to keep your account open. Adult Acne? Well lemme tell you, there will be the weeks where you just can’t help but break out in a swarm of pimples and zits, that just add to your overwhelming herd of locus feeding on your very thought of saving money. You start seeing notices on your door that say, “WARNING: You are to vacate these premises, by “x” date, and take with you all the pride you have because this is your first eviction notice”. You’ll try finding places for dirt cheap, hoping they’ll help you along your path, and then have to hire a plumber to fix your taps, costing you more than you could have ever possibly saved up for.

So now that you have a taste of what its like to be in real life, you may be thinking to yourself, “Well Why on Earth would anyone wanna live on their own?“. The answer is this. You…Didn’t…Know…It…Would…S U C K ! I swear, its like the best thing I’ve ever come up with. You just didn’t know. How could you? We always get what we want on a whim, and not have any worries about the next morning and you have someone waking up next you, you don’t know, your late for work, and your hungover, and couldn’t afford to buy Advil or Ibuprofen. Yes, This is Real Life. It sucks! You’ll love it!

November 2010 Staff & members of both our youth advisory panel and board of directors will be heading to Ottawa to attend National Youth in Care & Custody Networks ASK! LISTEN! BELIEVE! 2010 conference as well as their 25th Anniversary!
For more information please follow the link http://www.youthincare.ca/

March 2010, our youth advisory panel made the trip to Edmonton Alberta to speak to a panel of researchers conducting a review of Alberta’s child intervention system. It was a emotional trip for all of the young people who spoke. AYICCN could not be more honored to have such a strong group of young people represent us and many youth in care.

The young people took camera and took many photo’s along the way! The video below is a digital story of this trip to Edmonton.