Pathways to Education Canada is a charitable organization created to reduce poverty and its effects by lowering the high school dropout rate and increasing access to post-secondary education among disadvantaged youth in Canada.

The Pathways to Education Program is a proven effective model, first created and implemented in 2001 in Regent Park by the Regent Park Community Health Centre.

As a result of its ground-breaking achievements, Pathways is now expanding with local partners to five additional locations in Canada.

The Pathways to Education Program provides four key supports to ensure that young people will successfully complete high school, continue on to post-secondary programs and become actively engaged in their career development.

The four supports are:

• Academic - Tutoring in five core subjects, four nights a week
• Social - Group mentoring for grades 9 and 10, specialty and career mentoring for grades 11 and 12
• Financial - Immediate financial support such as free bus tickets tied to attendance and a bursary for post-secondary education (up to $4,000 per student in the program)
• Advocacy - Student-Parent Support Workers help connect teens, parents, school administration, teachers and community agencies

The program takes a holistic approach, ensuring that the four supports are delivered in a cross-communicative style and not in isolation.

When young people graduate, we all benefit. The Pathways to Education Program has proven to be less expensive and more cost-effective than most other programs available to disadvantaged youth. Ultimately, this translates into enormous savings in health care, correctional and social service expenditures.

For more information about Pathways Canada, or if you are a community leader interested in the Pathways model for the purpose of implementation, click here.