“One-To-One Peer Mentorship” Grant
2004 – 2007
WoodGreen Community Services’ Homeward Bound is a four-year program that enables mothers and their children, living in shelters, to transition from dependence on the public system to complete independence and economic self-sufficiency. Homeward Bound brings together a tuition-paid college education, affordable housing, personal development & counselling, subsidized childcare and employment training all under one roof. In order to help families work through the program and successfully reach their goals, each woman and child works directly with a counsellor throughout their four-year stay at Homeward Bound.
The Toronto-based program is an initiative that recognizes that a comprehensive training and support model is far more successful in helping clients reach a stage of selfsufficiency. Women are given life skills and career preparation training with a distinct focus on computer training to open up opportunities in office administration, IT positions and the financial services industry.
Follow-up to the training involves helping to match women with the right jobs to ensure secure, long-term employment.
While the Foundation’s support has gone solely towards counselling and life skills
programs, participants are housed in individual two- or three-bedroom apartments in a building located in Toronto East, a neighbourhood with a strong sense of community and people who are working towards a better future for their families. Child-care support, coupled with the children’s After-4 program ensures children are also receiving the necessary attention to help them transition to a more stable environment as well.