Covenant House Vancouver is committed to being a trauma-informed agency. The staff and board of Covenant House Vancouver hold an awareness that the youth who come to us may have been impacted by a single incident, by intergenerational or complex trauma, and/or by complex stress. We believe that trauma can be both a cause and a product of homelessness.

The impacts of the trauma that young people face, combined with their homelessness, may have negatively affected their abilities to attach, self-regulate, and develop competencies that they need in order to live independently, build healthy relationships, and establish positive coping mechanisms. Trauma-informed practice is in keeping with Covenant House Vancouver’s principles of structure, sanctuary, value communication, choice, and immediacy. Within our existing framework of attachment-based interventions, Covenant House Vancouver believes that safe relationships are the vehicle by which youth can begin to address and heal from their trauma.

You can read our full Trauma-Informed Practice Position Statement here.