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
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Decoy bear used to catch man who illegally killed a grizzly, B.C. conservation officers say
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
OPP responds to apparent video of officer supporting anti-Trudeau government protestors
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Loud boom in Hamilton caused by propane tank, police say
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.