Covenant House Vancouver

One of the toughest parts of being a Youth Worker is when we have to ask a young person to leave. As you can imagine, when a young person is asked to take a break from the shelter, they are not always appreciative of the decision. A big piece of our relationship with our youth is giving them an opportunity to advocate for themselves when they feel that they have been wronged. This is where Sister Nancy comes into play.

Sister Nancy acts as an ombudsperson for our young people. She sits with our youth after they have been asked to leave and allows them the opportunity to talk about whether or not they have been treated fairly. Not only does she provide an opportunity in which our youth can learn to advocate for themselves, but it also serves as a chance for our youth to learn to take ownership for their actions.

The other day we asked Brian to leave because he was continually being disrespectful to fellow shelter program participants. When he was asked to leave, he got very upset and didn't go without throwing out very disrespectful comments to the majority of the staff on the way-myself included.

Yesterday, Brian met with Sister Nancy to appeal the decision that he be discharged from program. They had a lengthy chat, and it was decided that the decision should stand- Sister Nancy agreed that a break was needed. Sister Nancy sent out notification that the appeal had not been granted and mentioned that she had a very good talk with this young man, and that he had taken some accountability for his actions.

Today, Brian stopped by the shelter while I was in the reception area. He had a gentle look on his face as he approached the desk. He said that he came to apologize for the things that he had said the other day, and asked to speak with a few of the staff who were there that day. He said that he felt terrible about the way he acted because he knew that we were really there to help, and he didn't want us to think that he didn't appreciate all that Covenant House has done for him.

I told him that I certainly appreciated the apology and assured him that I understood where he was coming from. I assured him that there were absolutely no hard feelings and that I looked forward to having him back soon. This is why we focus on building such solid relationships with our youth...it's beautiful to see these types of things happen.