VICTORIA, Canada—Foreign students who come to Canada to attend high school are getting into some unhealthy habits while away from home, according to a new study.
The students, most of whom come from China, Japan, and Korea and are aged 14 to 19, are being exposed to major health risks such as smoking, binge drinking, and drug use, according to University of British Columbia research.
The study, the first of its kind, found that homestays-students boarded with Canadian families-are more likely to smoke, use cocaine, and engage in early sexual activity compared to their Canadian-born East Asian counterparts or immigrant teens living with their parents.
The study also shows that homestay teen girls are more vulnerable to being sexually abused or sexually exploited.
“When we first did this study we were expecting that perhaps teenagers would be a little more stressed with exams and not having parental support nearby, or that kind of encouragement on a regular basis,” says Elizabeth Saewyc, study coauthor, and research director of the McCreary Centre Society.
“But we really did not expect the outcome in terms of the definite health differences and risks that these teens experience.”
The cocaine use in particular came as a surprise, says Saewyc, also a professor in the School of Nursing.
“Cocaine is not a typical drug that’s experimented with by high school students—it’s a very small number of high school students who ever use cocaine.”
Another “startling finding,” she says, was the high rate of sexual abuse reported by homestay girls compared—23 percent compared to 9 percent—with youth who had immigrated with their parents or East Asians born in Canadian. Alcohol was a factor in many sexual assaults.
“We worry that this is perhaps, for a very small number of people, potentially a route to trafficking,” Saewyc says, referring to a recent case in Vancouver where police raided a brothel at which a 17-year-old Chinese homestay student was an active sex-worker.
Canada is internationally known as a destination country for homestay youth. In British Columbia alone, the industry generates about $57 million annually, according to the study.
However, because there is no formal oversight of the homestay industry, there are no requirements for screening or licensing homestay families and nobody is keeping track of the teens who come to Canada to study.
In addition, guidelines provided by most agencies do not permit homestay parents to provide the same level of support, monitoring, or advice that they would give their own children.
“A lot of the homestay agencies make it very clear that the host family is not a guardian, is not in the role of being sort of a substitute parent, and so they have to have limits on what kinds of assistance and advice the host family can provide. So that also creates challenges,” says Saewyc.
It was this aspect that prompted associate professor Sabrina Wong—lead author of the study and herself a homestay parent—to delve further into the situation of homestay students in Canada.
“She began to wonder what kinds of potential health challenges it might actually create for kids who are living away from their actual parents for such long periods of time,” Saewyc says.
Recently published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, the study also found that homestay students were far less likely than other students to be involved in extracurricular activities, and that just over half had skipped school in the month before the survey, while only a quarter of immigrant or Canadian-born East Asian students did.
Saewyc calls for greater oversight, such as more coordination between the relevant government agencies, and providing homestay agencies with standards and guidelines for how they should be screening the host families.
She also recommends ensuring that when students come into the country, especially minor students, someone is designated to keep track of them. One concern is that if homestays drop out of school, neither the Department of Education nor the school districts have any further responsibility for them.
“Someone should be keeping track and making sure that these kids don’t fall through the cracks,” she says. It should also be made clear to students, she added, what their rights and responsibilities are, as well as providing information about “where they can call for help, for advice, for sorting out problems if they arise so that they do feel that they have people they can turn to.”
The students, most of whom come from China, Japan, and Korea and are aged 14 to 19, are being exposed to major health risks such as smoking, binge drinking, and drug use, according to University of British Columbia research.
The study, the first of its kind, found that homestays-students boarded with Canadian families-are more likely to smoke, use cocaine, and engage in early sexual activity compared to their Canadian-born East Asian counterparts or immigrant teens living with their parents.
The study also shows that homestay teen girls are more vulnerable to being sexually abused or sexually exploited.
“When we first did this study we were expecting that perhaps teenagers would be a little more stressed with exams and not having parental support nearby, or that kind of encouragement on a regular basis,” says Elizabeth Saewyc, study coauthor, and research director of the McCreary Centre Society.
“But we really did not expect the outcome in terms of the definite health differences and risks that these teens experience.”
The cocaine use in particular came as a surprise, says Saewyc, also a professor in the School of Nursing.
“Cocaine is not a typical drug that’s experimented with by high school students—it’s a very small number of high school students who ever use cocaine.”
Another “startling finding,” she says, was the high rate of sexual abuse reported by homestay girls compared—23 percent compared to 9 percent—with youth who had immigrated with their parents or East Asians born in Canadian. Alcohol was a factor in many sexual assaults.
“We worry that this is perhaps, for a very small number of people, potentially a route to trafficking,” Saewyc says, referring to a recent case in Vancouver where police raided a brothel at which a 17-year-old Chinese homestay student was an active sex-worker.
Canada is internationally known as a destination country for homestay youth. In British Columbia alone, the industry generates about $57 million annually, according to the study.
However, because there is no formal oversight of the homestay industry, there are no requirements for screening or licensing homestay families and nobody is keeping track of the teens who come to Canada to study.
In addition, guidelines provided by most agencies do not permit homestay parents to provide the same level of support, monitoring, or advice that they would give their own children.
“A lot of the homestay agencies make it very clear that the host family is not a guardian, is not in the role of being sort of a substitute parent, and so they have to have limits on what kinds of assistance and advice the host family can provide. So that also creates challenges,” says Saewyc.
It was this aspect that prompted associate professor Sabrina Wong—lead author of the study and herself a homestay parent—to delve further into the situation of homestay students in Canada.
“She began to wonder what kinds of potential health challenges it might actually create for kids who are living away from their actual parents for such long periods of time,” Saewyc says.
Recently published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, the study also found that homestay students were far less likely than other students to be involved in extracurricular activities, and that just over half had skipped school in the month before the survey, while only a quarter of immigrant or Canadian-born East Asian students did.
Saewyc calls for greater oversight, such as more coordination between the relevant government agencies, and providing homestay agencies with standards and guidelines for how they should be screening the host families.
She also recommends ensuring that when students come into the country, especially minor students, someone is designated to keep track of them. One concern is that if homestays drop out of school, neither the Department of Education nor the school districts have any further responsibility for them.
“Someone should be keeping track and making sure that these kids don’t fall through the cracks,” she says. It should also be made clear to students, she added, what their rights and responsibilities are, as well as providing information about “where they can call for help, for advice, for sorting out problems if they arise so that they do feel that they have people they can turn to.”
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