A Way Home is a national coalition dedicated to preventing, reducing and ending youth homelessness in Canada. Through a ‘collective impact’ framework we inspire and enable communities and all levels of government to organize, plan and implement strategies to address youth homelessness in a coordinated, measurable and impactful way. By strengthening families and building the assets and resilience of youth, we can help young people avoid homelessness and make a healthy transition to adulthood.

As a coalition, we draw on the strengths of leading national organizations such as Raising the Roof, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH), The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, Egale Canada and the National Learning Community on Youth Homelessness. Each activity within the constellation allows for cross-sectoral partnership and the opportunity to get the ‘unusual suspects’ at the table. The work of A Way Home is achieved by building on existing strengths, community engagement and innovation. The coalition is dedicated to building a strong and emerging commitment, across the country, to end youth homelessness and encourage alignment of the strategies and resources of leading players seeking to address homelessness in Canada.

A Way Home offers communities across Canada a range of tools and strategies to support the national movement to end youth homelessness, including:

• Collective impact, ‘theory of change,’ implementation support and opportunities for implementation grants delivered in partnership with the McConnell Foundation’s Youth Collective Impact Initiatives;
• Assistance to local communities and ongoing support for coordinators and backbone functions;
• Program model resources – toolkits and technical support for adapting and implementing effective program models; and
• Increased connection to government systems to support community-driven responses.

Coalition members collaborate to provide a range of resources and technical supports to assist communities to plan and implement strategies to prevent, reduce and end youth homelessness and to adapt effective program models and interventions to support these plans. Technical supports include tools, toolkits, webinars, example plans and implementation strategies.

For more information on A Way’s Home’s work and supports, see http://awayhome.ca/.