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Melissa Tremblay received the Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation — Indigenous for her involvement with the Successful Families Program, which provides supportive housing for teen parents and their children in Edmonton.
“The goal is to work with teen families to build on their strengths and empower them towards independence and to reach their goals, whatever those might be,” said Tremblay, an educational psychology professor at the U of A.
The teen parents reside in a townhouse complex, living alongside market renters. They’re given supports in related areas potentially unfamiliar to them, like career guidance and being a good tenant.
The housing model is important because teen parents are disproportionately vulnerable to homelessness, Tremblay said.