Supportive Housing for Teen Families: Investigating the Impacts of the Successful Families Program

Through the research project described in this report, we (a research group and two community organizations) explored how a supportive housing program, designed to serve teen families in Edmonton (the Successful Families Program), is starting to impact participants, the research field, and organizational/program policy of the partnering community organizations. Teen families are referred to the Successful Families Program and undergo a screening process to determine if they meet eligibility requirements related to income and/or funding and whether their independent living skills are developed enough to be suitable for the program. Teen families accepted into the program are provided with safe and affordable housing (provided and managed by Brentwood Community Development Group). They are also provided strengthbased, individualized, and collaborative services (provided and managed by Terra Centre) meant to empower families and support parents to raise their children in the ways they desire. We also reflected on ways our collaborative partnership has contributed to the research and 2 evaluation capacity of the service providers in the partnering community organizations. This research project had two phases. This report describes Phase 2 of the project which builds upon the work that we completed in Phase 1 (where we designed and implemented this supportive housing program with funding from a 2017 Homeward Trust grant; see the Research Report for more information about this work). Phase 2 of the project builds off of this previous work by exploring the ways that this program has begun to impact participating teen families and service providers, and the ways that this knowledge can continue to help.

Publication Date: 
2019