Covenant House Vancouver

One of the young women staying in our ROP program had the wonderful opportunity of building the medal podiums for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. As part of VANOC and Rona's Fabrication Shop (Fab Shop as Carmen called it), the partnership between VANOC and RONA provided young people with the training to build over 11,000 woodem items used throughout the Olympic Games in Vancouver.

Carmen began working with "Fab Shop" last October and was sworn to secrecy: despite being asked repeatedly by fellow ROP youth, Carmen was not allowed to say what she working on. It wasn't until she watched the first medal ceremony on TV with the rest of the ROP youth did she fully realize what she had been a part of; needless to say, she was thrilled with results and very proud to have played her part in the success of the Games.

Congratulations Carmen on your part in "owning the podium"!

My working relationship began with Carrie during the summer when she and her boyfriend came to Vancouver from another province. When I first met Carrie I could see she was sweet and gentle woman with much kindness in her heart; I could tell she came from a good family background. As time passed and my relationship continued to develop with Carrie I noticed she carried with her a heavy weight of sadness and learned she suffered from bipolar disorder.

When Carrie came to Vancouver with her boyfriend, she wasn't on the streets long before she began coming into Covenant House to see how we could help them find housing, get off the streets, and begin a normal life. The first thing we began to do was help Carrie get set up to stay at the shelter at Covenant House. Carrie seemed interested in this option so we went through all the necessary procedures and she was set up to stay for the night. The next morning I learned that Carrie had left the shelter the evening before to see her boyfriend who was still on the street and never came back.

This experience was the first of many that our relationship would encounter over the course of the next 5 months. There were times when we were on the road to making progress but then Carrie would disappear for periods of time or we would set up arrangements to shelters, or meetings for her to get housing and she wouldn't show up.

We were fortunate to have had two tickets to the Olympics Opening Ceremonies donated to us from an individual donor who couldn't attend at the last minute and are thrilled that it was enjoyed so much by the two youth who attended. Below is the thank you letter one of the youth wrote to the donor:

Thank you so much for giving me the experience of going to the opening ceremony. I had so much fun and it was incredible and exciting! I cried when I thought of how amazing whoever it was who donated the tickets was; it takes a truly incredible person to donate the tickets and give us such a wonderful experience!

Thanks again,

(name withheld for confidentiality)

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.

I checked in with Jesse, one of our mental health clinicians and guardian of Walter, our therapy dog-in training, this week to see how it was going. Jesse helped me understand more about how Walter and therapy dogs in general assist with counselling. Besides the general soothing effect a dog can have on someone who is stressed, therapy dogs provide a welcome distraction for people whose therapy session may be getting intense or uncomfortable.

Jesse explained that in a recent session he had a client who was getting to a rough spot in telling his story and clearly needed to take a break. Often the client is not aware of this or if he/she is, doesn't know how to stay "I need a break". So in this case, the client distracted the situation by asking if Walter "always snores when he's sleeping". A quick segue away from the pain was all he needed.

Jesse laughed telling me that young people who can't remember his name just call him "the guy with the dog".

 

I'm not a big fan of The Christmas, but I was so blown away by the decoration job a youth did in the shelter. It reeks of Christmas and I can't believe the eye this youth has for detail. I consider it his lasting mark on CHV because he did this just before aging out of the shelter program.

He will be missed. I wish I had included all the little birds peeping out of the tile ceiling, but I didn't notice them until much later. I thought I'd share his work with you because it definitely cheered me up this difficult Christmas.

Below are some pictures captured of this creative young person.

Yikes.  Some of our youth have been playing weekly hockey games for the past several months and have issued an all staff challenge to play them next Thursday.  They even created advertising for the event.

Sounds hard. I think I'm in.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING CHRISTMAS POSSIBLE FOR THESE YOUNG PEOPLE!

 

Many people have mixed emotions around Christmas time. For those who associate Christmas with unpleasant family memories or those who are alone, this time of year can be rough. For me, this is my first Christmas without my Mom who died last March. My dad is visiting and this is his first Christmas in 53 years without Mom.

For the youth at Covenant House, Christmas can be difficult, a reminder of all that may be missing in their lives. For some, though, Christmas means visiting with family or friends they with whom they still have a connection. The youth are often quite anxious about not having any gifts for family or friends, so we allow them to "shop" in our donations area so they can find some presents for their family members. It is amazing to watch the youth when they "shop", observing the anxiety melt away, seeing the youth become more confident and actually now, looking forward to seeing family because they don't have the apprehension of visiting and arriving empty handed

At Covenant House, we try to make Christmas extra special. The young people receive a stocking on their door Christmas morning and presents generously donated by our donor community. The kitchen staff prepares a beautiful Christmas brunch and the youth join in the preparation of the Christmas dinner feast. Our youth workers say that working Christmas Day is a gift; so much gratitude and so much fellowship.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be here for the youth all year long, but especially so at Christmas when they all need extra love and support.

How is Christmas for you? 

My day started meeting up with one of the youth who was previously staying here and he was at the front reception with a friend of his and he said that he wanted his friend to come by and see the place and the people that had changed his life.

So we went on talking and I explained that we provide the bare necessities like food, shelter, clothing, counselling but it's up to you to make the choices that you make and the road that you want to walk. And he said, that's true, that's true. But he said he couldn't have done it without Covenant House and the staff that's here, which was, which really is nice to hear.

He also said he had an epiphany because the night prior he was walking and saw a homeless person outside of a 7-11 down by where he lived and he said he got to talking with the homeless person and found out that the guy was 26 years old and trying to stay clean and was waiting to get a detox bed and that he was really hungry. And what this youth did, that we know, went and went back to his house and grabbed all of the canned goods that he had in his cupboards and all of the food that he could, basically, and went back down to the 7-11 and gave this homeless person, or this homeless male his food.

And at that time, and now he's saying, "I've had such a great feeling from doing that! It was the best feeling ever and now I understand why you guys do this kind of work. It's, it made me feel great," he said. And so he, this is a youth that I would say has a huge heart and has come over great obstacles and really, really is turning into an amazing human being.