Our Resources

Support Services

The Transition Workers help connect youth and families to resources within YESS and our community. They help to:

• promote and facilitate family reunification and pursue and maintain the youth’s natural supports
• develop goals with the youth while identifying and securing those natural and professional supports
• work with the youth to develop a safety, crisis, and/or a transition plan within their support network. This is done through regular meetings and communications with the youth their supports
• assist youth in obtaining identification, funding for school, and access to mental health treatment, advise and/or support youth with travel to specific appointments and assist youth in obtaining and securing housing in a group home or independently

Wellness Integration Team

The Wellness Integration Team is responsible to wellness for youth and staff by embodying and modelling holistic wellness. They are engaged in trauma-informed practice, and provide wellness practices and resources through internal programming and external referrals.

The Trauma Practitioner provides crisis support and skill development to empower youth to identify the most authentic decisions for them. They help to:

• support safety seeking with co-regulation to promote self-understanding in a container of unconditional positive regard
• build secure attachment to create space for authentic choice
• connect with youth 1:1 to focus on de-escalation, drop-in, or ongoing sessions to identify impacts of trauma and create inner stabilization
• support youth to educate and process

The Cultural Coordinator creates a community of care for youth and staff to share their culture through art, music, food, language, and more. The help to:

• provide youth with access individually and in groups to share culture and ceremony, and work through emotions like grief, sadness, and anger in ways that are aligned with their culture. While this is not a therapist role, connecting to culture is, in itself, a healing practice
• research community groups and agencies who are available for and connect youth to these resources so that youth can continue to connect with their culture in the community, even after they age out of YESS services
• meet with youth to learn about their individual needs and support around cultural or spiritual pathways. This could include a youth meeting with to smudge and share culture, or it could be a time for them to come talk about how they work through grief, sadness, anger (all the emotions) in their culture
• create group sessions for sharing culture, ceremony, activities, and learning together, including regular smudging, sharing circles and more
• support youth to connect with themselves, others, and the world, to understand their identity with compassion

The Wellness Practitioner develops sustainable wellness in staff by creating opportunities for authentic action and self-literacy through guided reflection. They help to:

• integrate holistic wellness in staff to embody and model well-being to youth
• process work-related stressors to reduce compassion fatigue and burnout
• increase resilience in staff to enhance the passion for their career and prevent vicarious trauma
• offer 1:1 support, workshops, information sessions, team wellness and activities for internal team members to develop goal-oriented support 

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