Thank you.
On behalf of the Saskatoon Downtown Youth Centre, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to present to your committee.
I am the executive director of this wonderful organization that I have been proud to be a part of for 22 years of its 25 years existence.
How did our Sweet Dreams program come about? ln 2013 we were approached to look at an issue of young people attending school and students' attendance being low to nonexistent, and, when they did come to school, they were unable to focus and stay in school for the whole day. That school requested a study to be done looking into sleep disorders. The individual completing the study came back to them and stated, “There were no sleep disorders. These young persons had no place to go.” The evaluator was so passionate about this cause that she put forward $50,000 of her own personal money if we could try to find a way to make a difference.
Over the next year we put together a group of individual front line workers representing Health, Ministry of Social Services, Education, EGADZ, and two individuals who were from the community. They were retired but still carried a passion to assist disadvantaged people.
We began meeting weekly to try to prioritize who was the most vulnerable population that needed to be served. We agreed that these mothers and their children not having a safe place to live and being provided supports put them at risk as well as having their children enter the social services system.
lt was aIso agreed that we needed to continue supporting those mothers who had worked so very hard to regain custody of their children. We needed a home that was respectful of parents so they would not have to put their children into care to receive services, while parents in an existing program would not to have their children in care any longer than need be.
During the first year of meetings and discussions we began to look at how the home would work, a business plan, and options of funding for this home. The social impact bond became an option.
During our first year of creating a business plan, we were looking at options of funding this home. We had applied for and received Services Canada funding, along with this year's $50,000. Our budget for the project was as follows: the purchase price of the home was $50,000, and renovations and legal fees were about $85,000. The total cost was a little over $1 million.
Colleen Mah had committed $25,000. The homeless partnering strategy had committed $320,000, a private donor had committed $20,000. The City of Saskatoon had committed $140,000, which left us $534,000 and left a shortfall of $500,000 capital and $500,000 operating.
There were two meetings with then Minister Draude to look at ways to fund this program. From the very first meeting it was made clear that the government would not be put in a deficit position. The minister liked the second proposal because it was creating a home for mothers and children, which we did really well.
The options for us to fund this home were to wait for up to a year and a half to get into the funding cycle with still no promises, to try to raise the needed dollars with an organization that already needs to raise about $100,000 per year to keep our doors open, or to go with a new and innovative way of funding called the social impact bond that bases funding on outcomes.
We agreed to do the funding through a SIB. We were allowed to be involved in the process of how the social impact outcomes would look. We were able to support mothers and children at time of need and not have to separate the mother and child bond. The province communicated with our board of directors and management, answering any questions that may have arisen. The social impact bond was based on outcomes, that if successful, could be cost neutral and allow added savings to be shown as the benefits of government and communities doing things differently. We've been working on outcomes reporting for the past five years and see the direct benefit to the most important people in this equation: the clients we serve.
This process allows our organization to stay true to our vision statement that every child deserves to grow up to become a contributing citizen. That includes the mother with children who remains in a home with domestic violence and physical and verbal abuse, who is often too scared to come forward because she believes her children will be taken away because she has perceived herself as a bad parent. That includes the parents who have worked hard at regaining custody of their children only to have no support to ensure that they are able to take advantage of employment and educational opportunities while having a roof over their heads.
We needed this as a part of a continuum of residential services we have created since 1997, with 16 homes providing safety and shelter to over 120 children.
Every mother will enter the home based on a motivational interview looking at the risks to the mother and the child, her willingness to be a part of the plan, and what she is willing to contribute.
We believe that the Government of Saskatchewan is interested in undertaking innovative approaches to social issues to improve the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. We believe social innovation has a number of tools that can be used and governments are interested in exploring ideas that can deliver better services to our province's most vulnerable.
Our investors in the social impact bond include Wally and Colleen Mah from North Ridge Development Corporation, with $500,000 towards this project. The Mahs have been involved in our residential services since we began, by contributing over $800,000 towards 11 of the 16 homes that we currently operate for children, mothers, and hard-to-serve youth in Saskatoon.
Expansion of our residential services, such as Baby Steps, to include two bedrooms in the home so that mothers can live with their children while the children are in the care of social services; Mah's Place; and a number of our My Homes would not have happened without the generosity of the Mahs. Colleen Mah has been a huge advocate for the mothers, looking at ways to provide long-term housing support for successful candidates.
The Conexus Credit Union is giving us $100,000 per year for five years. Credit unions are very involved in our community. They loved the concept of helping parents and their children, and they wanted to become more involved by offering educational services and financial literacy to our clients while they are in the home. They also have a huge willingness to be a part of looking at ways to assist moving forward in this project.
I'll talk about the early indicators, so far, of Sweet Dreams. We are embarking on our first anniversary of Sweet Dreams. For us, with the social impact bond, the program is able to work based on outcomes and need. Many of our clients coming into the program have lived in situations involving domestic violence and addiction, fearing that if they were to come forward, their child would be taken away. Now parents are able to leave those situations with hope and support for them and their children. Young moms can now continue loving bonds with their children and have the opportunity to break the cycles that have kept them in poverty for years.
We have a process-driven program that is now based on a partnership including government, community and, most importantly, our client. For years, there has been a gap. Once the parents had their children returned to them, the supports stopped. Now, with Sweet Dreams, we are able to continue the support until the parents are strong enough to move on in their lives.
Outcomes to date include the following: mothers have transitioned into independent living; a mother is working at regaining two of her children, who have been made long-term wards of the government, while caring for two children currently in her care; a mother has moved out and found employment in a career she loves; and we were able to provide housing support to a pregnant mom until she could find a safe and supportive family to live with.
Thanks to the SIB, we are able to meet the need of our community, which was previously seen as out-of-the-norm for government. We have received requests from all over the province from mothers wanting a chance to make a better life for themselves and their children with support and guidance. This process has allowed our organization the ability to support mothers and their children, keeping them out of social services.