I'd like to respond to that by saying that I was a foster parent for 18 years and raised four refugee youth from the camps, two from Malaysia and a couple from the Philippines. I want to say that this is an issue that's very close to my heart, because I still keep in touch with some of those youth. I'm a foster grandmother, as a matter of fact.
One of the key things that I also did was develop the foster parent training program in British Columbia. I want to say that many of these youth experience, as you know, culture shock, but they also experience the typical intergenerational rebellion and that kind of thing. But this is doubled, because in addition to their own experiences, now they're embracing Canadian life, the norms and the standards of what their friends are allowed to do, such as go out till midnight on a Friday night or whatever, whereas that might be an issue for their parents because they are very strict or very traditional or have religious beliefs or whatever it is. What we're seeing in the care system across the different provinces is that there is actually a higher incidence of immigrant and refugee youth who also go into care. I'd also like to say that there are also some youth who are refugee claimants who also go into care, for the province.
These children who end up in care do not get, again, any specialized programs, services, etc., despite the fact that many of them have experienced trauma. Again, that's why we are saying that we need to look at this as a country, because we are losing these youth otherwise, and that is such a shame. So absolutely, there are things that can be put in place.
For myself, because I'm familiar with the system, I'm an advocate for my child and I was able to help some of my own foster children get through some of that. For example, one of my foster children is now doing her master's in German, in Bonn, Germany. She speaks five different languages. She has now been in international exchange programs across the world. She has succeeded as nobody would have thought, coming from a refugee camp in Thailand. But this is an exception rather than the rule. I would like to say that these children all deserve a chance and they deserve whatever kinds of programs and services we need to be able to give them, to build our second generation.