Youth in Canada’s child welfare system need stronger government leadership to improve educational outcomes. Fewer than half of youth who have spent time in foster care — known as care-experienced youth — complete high school and even fewer attend or complete post-secondary education. These educational gaps can have lasting consequences for the life chances of care-experienced youth, including higher rates of unemployment, poverty, homelessness, criminalization and other longstanding disparities. Education falls under the provincial and territorial jurisdiction. However, the absence of strong federal oversight — including the lack of a co-ordinated national data collection and reporting process — contributes to the current patchwork of data that exists.As a result, we lack a clear understanding of which publicly funded policies and interventions are effective in meeting the unique needs of care-experienced youth. The Senate’s Standing Committee on Human Rights recently released the report Nothing to Celebrate: The Crisis of Youth Aging Out of Care. This report is a much-needed national call to action. It sets out eight concrete recommendations to address the health, social, economic and educational disparities faced by care-experienced youth. Yet a key question remains: In a child welfare system marked by jurisdictional divisions, will care-experienced youth see the needed action to improve their life chances, including equitable access to educational opportunities? A lack of co-ordinated national data collection and reporting contributes to the current patchwork of information about youth in care, and this hampers developing effective strategies to meet their needs. (Martin Lopatka/Flickr), CC BY-SA National children and youth commissioner?One of the Senate report’s central recommendations is the establishment of a national children and youth commissioner. This is not a new idea. It’s been proposed for decades. Yet Canada remains one of the few high-income countries without a national oversight body focused on the well-being of children and youth. A national children and youth commissioner would have a mandate to monitor and report to Parliament on children’s rights and the rights of people who are becoming adults.Such a mandate could help create a clearer picture of the realities facing young people with care experience, including their educational disparities from coast to coast. A national commissioner could also play an important role in reporting data from across the country on children and youth during care and as they transition into adulthood. A national child welfare data-reporting requirement could inform more equitable and responsive policy and program decision-making, regardless of where a child or youth spent time in care. As highlighted in the Senate report, the province or territory where a child or youth was in care should not determine whether they receive supports or how long those supports last. Read more: Forgotten futures? Canada urgently needs a national discussion about young people’s futures Another key recommendation in the Senate report is aimed at addressing jurisdictional disparities by calling for a national summit and action plan involving federal, provincial and territorial governments, guided by the Equitable Standards for Transitions to Adulthood for Youth in Care. Grounded in lived expertise, these standards promote more equitable and gradual transitions to adulthood based on readiness rather than age alone. This approach offers an alternative to the abrupt termination of supports at the arbitrary age set by provincial or territorial legislation.Indigenous children and youth in careA national children and youth commissioner would also help navigate the complex jurisdictional policy landscape affecting Indigenous children and youth in care. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation underscores that the over-representation of Indigenous children and youth in the mainstream child welfare system is an ongoing legacy of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop. These colonial policies have enabled the separation of Indigenous children from their families and communities. Although Indigenous Services Canada introduced services in 2022 to assist youth aging out of care and young adults formerly in care, there is no external federal oversight to ensure the program is sustainable and is achieving its intended goals. A national commissioner could also help ensure that Indigenous youth with care experience receive equitable support both on- and off-reserve through governments upholding Jordan’s Principle.Mobility rights for youthFederal co-ordination of supports and services is also essential to upholding the mobility rights set out in Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The transition to adulthood should include unrestricted mobility across the country. Yet for care-experienced youth, a fragmented child welfare system and uneven post-secondary supports can limit where they are able to attend college or university. Currently, programs and services designed to support youth transitioning to adulthood are difficult to navigate across provinces and territories. Staff in one part of the country often do not have complete or up-to-date information about programs and supports available in other jurisdictions. Holistic, integrated supports neededRecent findings from our work in Atlantic Canada show that improving educational outcomes for care-experienced youth requires more than national oversight and formal policy alignment. For example, tuition waiver programs can create access to post-secondary education, but that access is often undermined by barriers and costs beyond tuition, including intersecting forms of trauma, a lack of housing, food insecurity, transportation issues, the cost of books and school supplies and child care. While many youth without care experience may have family members to serve as a financial and emotional support system, this is not the case for many care-experienced youth as they head into post-secondary studies. Our research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council also shows that care-experienced youth are more likely to persist when financial support is paired with holistic, trauma-informed wraparound services. These include consistent mentorship, navigation support, counselling, tutoring and culturally responsive community connections. Importantly, success should not be defined only by graduation. It should also be understood through belonging, persistence and student-defined progress. Simply surviving being in care isn’t OKA stronger national approach, including the appointment of a national children and youth commissioner, could help Canada move beyond fragmented provincial and territorial eligibility rules and the inadequate data systems for tracking outcomes for children and youth in the child welfare system. It could support a more co-ordinated model in which access to post-secondary education is paired with the structural and relational supports that care-experienced youth need to succeed and thrive. Simply surviving and aging out of the child welfare system should not be an acceptable outcome measure.If we truly value the lives of those with care experience, governments across the country must show stronger leadership and make the long-overdue structural changes needed to repair a broken child welfare system.Jacquie Gahagan receives funding from CIHR, SSHRC, RNS.Dale Kirby receives funding from SSHRC. Mary Rita Holland is affiliated with the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party.Melanie M. Doucet is also the Executive Director of the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates (NCYICA), which receives funding from the McConnell Foundation and the Catherine Donnelly Foundation.