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Presented by Kelsey Ross
Welcome!
My name is Kelsey Ross,
I use she/her/hers pronouns,
and I'm from the Calgary Sexual Health Centre.
The University of Guelph resides on the ancestral lands of the Attawandaron people and the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. We recognize the significance of the Dish with One Spoon Covenant to this land and offer our respect to our Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Métis neighbours as we strive to strengthen our relationships with them.
The Calgary Sexual Health Centre is a non-profit organization guided by feminist and pro-choice principles.
Provide free sexual health information and resources to folks across the lifespan.
Stay tuned for our
re-branding June 22!
Participate
Pass
Privacy
Respect
Fun
"Natural Supports"
Natural Supports are the relationships and personal associations that we develop in the course of daily living.
Brainstorm
Activity
Find the handout in front of you with two boxes.
Take two minutes and...
Remember a time when you experienced a personal crisis. Who did you draw on for support?
Remember a time when you had something to celebrate. Who did you share that with?
Circle any connection that is in your life because they are paid to be there.
What would it feel like if the majority of the list was comprised of people who were paid to support you?
Goal:
Youth are able to rely on, and contribute to, a life-long network of supportive family, community, and peer relationships.
Foundational Constructs:
Identity & Belonging
Trauma-Informed Practice
Reflective Practice
The
Framework
Youth and clients can and SHOULD have access to a network of supportive relationships. This can be challenging, and may feel risky, but loneliness is lethal.
We treat connection to natural supports with the same urgency as food, shelter, and clothing.
“I do the crisis work, but even as I am doing it the questions I ask are so different. Instead of ‘Which shelter would you like to go to? Who are the professionals I need to connect you to? What resources do you need?’ I ask ‘Who in your family can help you? Who do you wish would support you now? Who would you like to invite to come along? I do the work and connect them to the resources they need but at the same time I orient the youth back to their natural supports.”
What are your priorities at intake?
What types of questions do you ask?
What types of referrals do you typically make?
How could you include a greater focus on natural supports in your work?
We actively seek out natural supports and create space for them to contribute.
“At our group home, we used to spend program dollars taking our youth out to lunch on their birthdays. Then we decided to ask them to invite a friend or family member – but no one came. (Who wants to have lunch with their friend’s social worker!). Then we decided to just give our youth a gift certificate to treat a friend to lunch and celebrate their birthday in whatever way they want. It’s about creating space for relationships to flourish. Those are the relationships that will really matter in the long run – not their relationship with us.”
What assumptions do you have about vulnerable youth and their families? How might these assumptions affect your ability to 'seek out and scooch over"?
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." (Suzuki) How does being the expert shut down inquiry? How might you cultivate a beginner's mind?
We respect the autonomy of young people and their natural supports.
“Often when we’re doing safety plans with youth, we essentially create the plan ourselves rather than working with them to find strategies that they could try. We might have some ideas we can share, but if we are on auto-pilot because we make safety plans all the time – if we aren’t really doing it with them – it isn’t likely to be as effective and it doesn’t allow them to really start to learn to plan for their safety without us.”
Most people become youth workers (etc.) because they want to help. What are you learning about what it takes to be helpful? How can 'doing for' ultimately be unhelpful?
Reflect on the nature of your interactions with youth. Where do you see examples of 'doing with'? Where do you see examples of 'doing for'? How could you improve in this area?
We support youth to build and maintain meaningful relationships.
These can include self-awareness, managing strong emotions, reciprocity, communication, cooperation, conflict negotiation, boundary setting, identifying risks, and keeping themselves safe.
“What I’ve noticed is as young people come out of systems of care expecting that their support systems will magically know what to do and treating them as if they’re trained professionals. And the natural supports go ‘They treat me like crap and expect me to show up the next day!’ But they do that because that’s what professionals have always done. So it’s an unlearning piece, retraining them for natural relations. One of the big reasons that natural supports get turned off is they don’t feel valued, they don’t experience any gratitude. So we’ve focused on small ways that we can help them learn how to express gratitude and kindness.”
How could you model skills and support their development in the people you work with?
To what extent are relationship skills part of your current work with your clients and their natural supports? Are there resources and/or expertise in your organization that you could draw on to help you further integrate socioemotional learning into your work with youth?
We cultivate a more realistic approach to risk-management and safety.
“One of our youth has an EPO [Emergency Protection Order] with mom. He can’t be in contact with her, but we’ve agreed to let them connect by Facebook. He gets the emotional support and connection he needs and she gets the connection she needs without putting her at risk of his behaviours. A year ago, I would have said no way to that. The EPO says no contact so no contact. Now I think about it differently. I think about what is safe contact. They need each other. They don’t need to live with each other or even see each other, but they need contact with each other. But this is making some of my colleagues really uncomfortable and if the [Probation Office] finds out, it is likely the youth would be considered to be breaking the order. We need to get Justice involved. We need to re-think how we protect mom. We need to rethink what no contact means.”
What fears or concerns do you have about a harm reduction approach to relationships? Could those things happen even if you forbid contact? Why/why not?
What kinds of organizational supports would you need in order to be able to take this kind of approach? How can you work with your team and supervisor to put these supports in place?
Practice
Let's try this framework out with an example.
Split into three groups, and work through the practice example in front of you.
We'll come back together in five minutes to discuss.
Sexual Health Education
Deprofessionalization
Decolonization
Who is the expert?
Conclusion
What excites you about this approach?
What are your concerns?
How could this be integrated into your work?
Organizations within the Change Collective are presenting this at conferences Canada-wide.
CSHC is providing training to frontline workers.
Version 2.0 of the framework...Stay tuned!
Take this framework back to your organizations and share!
Any Questions?
Visit the Burns Memorial Fund Website for the free publication:
http://www.burnsfund.com/research-publications/working-with-vulnerable-youth-to-enhance-their-natural-supports/
Feel free to contact me for any follow-up questions or comments.
Contact Info:
kross@calgarysexualhealth.ca