Each year, the City of Kamloops issues a call for proposals for registered charities and non-profit agencies in our community to apply for Social and Community Development Grants, which are intended to fund special projects, operational costs, and/or capital expenditures that address specific current social problems and/or issues related to the City’s Social Plan or the Livability pillar of the Council Strategic Plan.
A Way Home Kamloops Society received a $9,000 Social and Community Development Grant in 2021 and $5,790 in 2022. This is how the grants were used:
Submitted by A Way Home Kamloops Society
The grant A Way Home Kamloops Society (AWHK) received in fall 2021 was used to connect youths in our program with consistent mental health support through a Registered Clinical Counsellor.
This project has been immensely helpful in supporting youths in AWHK housing. We had an initial period of introduction and awareness about the project with the youths and then they began connecting with counsellors. Some youths have tried working with a couple of different counsellors to find a good fit with someone they are comfortable with. To date, youths in AWHK programs have attended over 50 counselling sessions!
Access to adequate counselling supports provides our youths with a safe and supportive space to discuss any issues they may not feel comfortable discussing with their housing workers or case managers. Counsellors provide unconditional positive regard to their clients, something that our youths have had little to no access to in their journeys. The unconditional positive regard shows the youths they are worthy of love unconditionally, which greatly improves their self-esteem, can shift their world view, and help to remove youth from street entrenchment.
AWHK applied for funding in 2022 to support a youth collaboration project. We received $5,790, which helped to outline and develop AWHK’s general approach and preliminary strategies for engaging youth in the ongoing work of AWHK.
We aimed to engage 30 youth to inform the design of programs that will take place at the new AWHK housing project, Katherine’s Place, located on the North Shore.
This project is important because only the youths we serve know best what will work for them! A Way Home Kamloops was founded by a person with lived expertise, and we need to continue to ensure that youths who have experienced homelessness continue to be at the centre of the work we do. To do this, we need long-term strategies for sustainability. This project also gave us time with the AWHK Board of Directors and AWHK staff to start talking about our long-term approaches to collaborating with youths. The reports from these sessions will form the basis of a year-long engagement strategy that AWHK begins undertaking in October 2023.
“This gave youths in housing an opportunity to reflect on what worked for them, as well as new programs or supports that could have helped them, and then how we would be able to create this for upcoming youths. It is crucial that we capture the voices of youths to develop and implement programming because they know themselves, their needs, and what may be beneficial to others,” said a youth with lived experience who works with AWHK.
The youths were all interactive during the session and really enjoyed the opportunity to share their ideas to create meaningful change for other youths in relation to their housing, mental health and substance use, education and employment, cultural connections, food preservation, and many other great support ideas.
To learn more about this grant, visit Kamloops.ca/Grants. To view stories on how other groups used their Social and Community Development Grants, visit Kamloops.ca/CityStory.
