New youth outreach team searches for teens in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
Searching through alleys, tents and hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, members of a new youth outreach team are doing all they can to get vulnerable teens the help they need.
With backpacks full of harm-reduction supplies and snacks, the Vancouver Coastal Health team spends four to five hours per day looking for clients.
"One thing we were noticing at Vancouver Coastal Health is that there were a lot of clientele that were falling through the gaps,” said Carlos Mendez Espinoza, a social worker and one of the original members of the team that launched late last year.
Espinoza said many of their clients have major trust issues with adults, often leading them to resist their help at first.
"When we approach them we have to work with a trauma-informed practice, to make sure we don't re-traumatize them and to allow us to engage in a supportive way to built trust,” he said.
That trauma often comes from extremely rough childhoods, and in some cases sexual exploitation.
"A misconception is often that the focus is the substance and the issue is the substance,” said Elaine Durand, an occupational therapist for VCH’s youth intensive case management team.
“The substance is a coping strategy and in some ways a medicine – there's unspeakable trauma that people have been through,” she continued.
Their goal is to build and nurture relationships with the teens before helping bridge the gap between them and the service providers they’ve stopped seeing.
Durrand said that might involve giving those service providers notice – "a heads up that this person might need a few tries to get to an appointment, they might be late, they might need extra time."
"They require extra space to be able to express themselves, they may get emotional. I can prime situations so that they can enter them, whether it's for physical health or mental health,” Durand added.
The team is currently operating out of the Downtown Community Health Centre near Powell and Princess streets – though plans to open a new drop-in facility in the Downtown Eastside are underway.
The group will also get some welcomed additions in the near future, with nurses and an Indigenous peer advocate set to join once the new facility is operational.
"I think and believe the work we're doing will definitely assist clients," Espinoza said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6976926.1721883767!/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.png)
DEVELOPING Alberta's request for federal assistance approved after fast-moving wildfire hit Jasper National Park: Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on social media that Ottawa has approved Alberta's request for federal assistance after a fast-moving wildfire hit Jasper National Park and its townsite late Wednesday.
BREAKING Loblaw, George Weston to settle class action over bread price-fixing for $500 million
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and its parent company George Weston Ltd. say they have agreed to pay $500-million to settle a class-action lawsuit regarding their involvement in an alleged bread price-fixing scheme.
EXCLUSIVE One address, 76 foreign currency dealers: Inside Canada's money service business 'clusters'
An IJF and CTV News investigation has found dozens of cases across Canada where multiple money services businesses (MSBs) are incorporated at the same address, sometimes without the knowledge or consent of the location's actual occupant. One money laundering expert calls it an 'abuse of the system.'
U.K. police officer suspended after video appears to show a man being kicked in head
A British police officer was suspended from all duties Thursday after a video was posted on social media that appeared to show an officer kicking and stamping on the head of a man lying on the floor of a terminal at Manchester Airport.
'I'm so broke': Two Toronto women speak out after losing $76,000 in romance scam
Two women from the Toronto area are speaking out after losing thousands of dollars to a romance scam, including a single mother who lost $62,000.
Barrie-Innisfil MPP 'blacked-out' and crashed car into window of child care centre
Staff at a Barrie child care centre say they are frustrated by what they call a local MPP's inadequate response after a car crashed through a window in one of the toddler rooms.
Norad intercepts Russian and Chinese bombers operating together near Alaska in apparent first
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what appears to be the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
Biden explains why he ended re-election bid in Oval Office address
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a solemn call to voters to defend the country's democracy as he laid out in an Oval Office address his decision to drop his bid for reelection and throw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Jasper mayor says alert system to be reviewed after message 'glitch'
More than 25,000 people have been displaced from Jasper National Park since wildfires started to threaten the picturesque corner of Alberta Rockies on Monday, but the mayor of its namesake municipality says not everyone received an evacuation alert when it was sent out.