Youth hub set to open in spring

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/01/2022 (1520 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Westman Youth Wellness Hub is working to open its doors in the early spring to offer early prevention and supports for young people in Brandon.

It has been an exciting but challenging time working to open the centre to the public, said Westman Youth Wellness Hub director Shaun Funk, especially because the launch and organization of the hub has taken place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been an interesting challenge as we work with our community partners … dreaming, visioning and getting the space ready to go,” Funk said.

The centre is undergoing a co-ordination process at the provincial level as they work through branding, starting up and service integration.

He described the hub as being in the start-up testing phase — community partners are hosting appointments in the building, but the centre remains closed to the public for now.

Funding for the youth hub was first announced by the province in March 2021.

The centre is part of a project led by the Manitoba government, Shared Health and a group of philanthropic partners with the United Way Winnipeg to expand Integrated Youth Services in Manitoba.

Youth hubs improve access to mental health and addiction services for young people, said a press release from the province. They co-ordinate and integrate mental health and addiction services, provide meaningful engagement and involvement for youth and their families, early intervention and health promotion, decrease stigmas surrounding mental health and addictions, and help increase the overall quality of life for young people.

The province has provided funding for the creation of five new youth hub sites across Manitoba — one in Brandon, three in Winnipeg and one in Selkirk.

The five youth hub partnerships were selected by the provincial government in response to a call for proposals issued in November 2020. The cities selected are designed to serve a greater number of young people in some of the province’s highest-needs areas.

The province is investing $1.92 million in youth hub expansions. Philanthropic partners, such as the Bell-Graham Boeckh Foundation Partnership, United Way Winnipeg, RBC Foundation, the Winnipeg Foundation, the Moffat Family Fund, the Réseau Compassion Network and others will be contributing $2.96 million to the initiative over three years.

United Way Winnipeg is leading and co-ordinating the initiative, including the creation of a Manitoba Youth Hubs Network to enable shared capacity building across all youth hub sites.

“All five of us are in this really soft launch or development stage right now,” Funk said. “We’re not officially open yet, that is coming, but we’re in this development stage with our community partners here.”

Youth hubs are designed to provide low-barrier, integrated services for young people and their families at a single easy-to-access location. A network of organizations and service providers work closely together to provide youth-centred services across a diverse intersection of care to ensure young people can access all of the core health services they need in one place.

In Brandon, the youth hub is being led by Youth for Christ and includes Prairie Mountain Health, the Brandon Friendship Centre, Careers Employment Youth Services and the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba as partners.

When it comes to the success of the program the organization is working with community partners to establish a way to understand how and if the needs of young people in Westman are being met.

Funk noted they are also talking with community partners and the Brandon School Division to establish a baseline regarding how they can understand if they are finding success in the community.

As the hub is in the final steps of the development stage, it is also working with the Brandon University Centre for Critical Studies of Rural Mental Health to develop a youth centre evaluation to further help them understand the impacts it is having in the community.

The collection of data from youth at the hub will provide a picture of success, too.

The ultimate goal of the centre is to start with partnerships in place, he said, and while the emerging collaborations have been successful, the pandemic has slowed everything down.

“People aren’t able to meet in person the way they normally are and people are sick at times. That’s all part of it,” Funk said.

The hub is an important initiative because youth have been feeling an especially keen sting from the effects of the pandemic and isolation brought on by COVID-19.

Young people in Westman are also helping guide the vision for the centre.

“One of the pillars of integrated youth services is that every site has a youth advisory committee that speaks into both the building and the programming that will be provided,” Funk said.

In Brandon, a youth advisory of five has been established and met regularly over the past year to provide input on what the building looks like, programs offered and the overall vision for the hub.

The main focus in Brandon has been getting the building ready to go and youth are sharing input on what makes for the best possible welcoming and inclusive space.

“What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like?,” Funk said.

These insights have helped form what the physical location will look like.

The hub is now entering a phase where staff are starting to focus more on programming and the needs in the community as shared by youth and their connections in Westman.

Community partners will help bring these programming aspects to the youth hub.

Funk has been with Westman Youth for Christ for 10 years as part of the Uturn program, he said, and the role of executive director of the hub has been an exciting and challenging new role.

Uturn is a transitional housing program for youth facing homelessness. It was developed when he started with the Westman Youth for Christ and served to manage and grow existing programming.

Funk added Uturn works with youth who face addiction challenges as well as homelessness — but the services were based on a model of support that was at the downstream end of service provision.

He appreciates the youth hub model because it is centred on prevention.

“It’s an upstream model, so if youth hubs are successful across the province, the hope is that we’ll have less need for transitional housing programs like Uturn,” Funk said.

Speaking personally, Funk said, he envisions the Westman Youth Wellness Hub as a step in prevention that can help ensure young people will not face tough outcomes in life, like homelessness.

“If we can get to them sooner. If we can connect with their families. If we can provide mental health and [addiction] support before it leads to really tough outcomes for them, that’s just going to be better for them personally, it’s better for their families and it’s going to be better for our community.”

» ckemp@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp