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Abstract Compared to the vast amount of literature on what drives young people to homelessness and what keeps them there, there is notably less empirical evidence on the experiences of young people who have left the streets and attempted to integrate into the mainstream. Over the course of ten months, we followed nine young people from Canada's largest city – Toronto, Ontario – who had exited street life and were living independently. In this paper, we discuss how the participants attempted to carve out new identities and how these identities were challenged. We argue that it is crucial to incorporate identity into the way social integration is conceptualized and facilitated for young people attempting the daunting task of transitioning away from homelessness. Highlights • Formerly homeless young people want to distance themselves from their old identities. • Social service supports can be stigmatizing and reinforce homeless identities. • Strong identities can be used as currency (identity capital) to assist with social integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration between child welfare and adult mental health service providers is important to address parental risk factors that may affect child wellbeing. The aim of this paper is to describe findings from a survey which identified barriers and facilitators to collaboration between these two sectors. A semi-structured instrument, adapted from Frederico et al. (2014), was used for data collection. A total of 339 service providers in Ontario, Canada, completed the survey. The collaborative strategies used most frequently were co-working with staff from other services and case conferences; yet, these strategies were only used by just over one half of all respondents. Several barriers and facilitators to collaboration were identified by respondents. To improve collaboration between child welfare and adult mental health services, respondents recommended better clarity of roles and goals, increased information sharing, capacity building across sectors and new models of integrated service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]