Lived Experts may interact with Service Providers in various roles at organizations providing various services. A comprehensive understanding of the living experience of child welfare systems and permanency journeys can help professionals do their best work. In 2024, we began to build on our work with Service Providers by creating a training and peer-support opportunities. L was part of a group of nine service providers from six different organizations that participated in the Service Provider Training Pilot.

Launching gave us time to reflect on the legacies we are continuing and look to the future with hope of what we can create together.

The Lived Expert Library is a tribute to tenacity, yes—but more importantly, it’s a tribute to talent, to vision, and to the many layers of lived experts that are so often overlooked. It’s a reminder that we are more than what we've survived—we are what we’ve made from it.

In honour of Children and Youth in Care Day, please visit the Lived Expert Library and browse the submissions.

In April 2023, Never Too Late (NTL) officially launched as an independent organization and began building on years of foundational work done as a program at the Adoption Council of Ontario. Our inaugural Annual Report shares stories of community strength and tenacity and covers the work that we completed in our first fiscal year October 2023 - September 2024.

Downtown Legal Services in collaboration with the Adult Adoption Working Group is composing a four-part manual, “Unpacking the Family Backpack,” which outlines legal rights and privileges in Ontario that depend on family status.