About MYS:

One of our clients started Coach at the age of eight. By grade three, he had already been through five different school placements. Over the course of his involvement with Coach, he participated in a variety of sports lessons which included Kung Fu, swimming, water polo and diving. He played on the basketball and soccer teams at his school, as well as a baseball team and basketball league at the local community centre. In the summer, he attended day camps and overnight stays at a cottage – all with Coach participation and transportation.

Coach helped his mom with employment insurance assistance, as well as referrals to CFS for supports, to St. Boniface Hospital for assessment and family therapy and to Manitoba Housing for safe housing and advocacy for special needs funding. This bright young client has shown immense improvement throughout the years we have worked with him. In December 2008, Coach helped him transition into regular grade six classes, and he will be attending grade seven at a new school in September 2009 without any classroom supports.

A seventeen year old young woman was placed at the Wuskwatim Community Based Healing Home. She was reportedly struggling with alcohol abuse, street drug abuse, prescription drug abuse, not attending school and extreme family conflict. Her grandparents from the Northwest Territories, with whom she was very close, sent her $600 shortly before she came into our care for her to purchase a plane ticket to go and visit them. She spent this money on drugs and alcohol, didn’t go out for a visit and subsequently severed her contact with them.

This young woman quickly embraced all aspects of the Wuskwatim programming. She enrolled full time in grade 10 Courses at the local high school and did extremely well. She took the work seriously and demonstrated notable initiative to be successful. She also secured employment and essentially worked full time hours after school and on weekends. This young woman spoke often about how much she missed her grandparents, how badly she felt for misspending their $600 and how she would not have contact with them again until she made it right.

Through her hard work, she was able to save $400, purchased a money order for that amount and sent it to her grandparents at the beginning of November 2007 (only 5 months into her placement!). She refrained from using substances throughout her months at Wuskwatim and successfully moved into the Kisewatisiwin Individual Treatment & Support Program (Independent Living) in November. She continued with her positive growth, succeeding in this program and was able to travel to the Northwest Territories and spend Christmas 2007 with her grandparents. She continues to be focused on completing her education and living as a healthy and productive adult.

One of our clients came from a different province where he lived with his father. They would often party together, sometimes resulting in his father disappearing for long periods of time. During one of these times our client came to Winnipeg to visit extended family and seek a better life, but soon found himself entrenched in the street life.

He first came to us in 2004 requesting food resources. We knew little about him – he was non-trusting, vague and quite closed off from staff. Over many months, staff worked with meeting this client’s needs and developing a relationship with him. He began to feel safe and started accepting our offer for shelter.

He would often visit his dad, always to return to Winnipeg. Once he became settled in the city, his dad was killed. Our client took his death very hard, but YRC staff supported him during his grieving process and helped him deal with the many changes that began to take place in his life.

Our client has grown to become a responsible and strong individual. Now he works full-time and lives with his girlfriend and their 6-month-old daughter at his sister’s house. YRC staff helped him through the many changes he faced, validating his insecurities of becoming a father and helping him find his own strengths. His goal is to save up enough money to provide his family with a home of their own, and they continue to receive support from YRC whenever they need it.

One youth involved in the program demonstrated exceptional determination in the face of adversity. When the youth came to the program, she identified her barriers and demonstrated exceptional self-awareness. The barriers she identified included her anger and placement issues with the child welfare system. In the course of her involvement, her explosive anger became evident, as did her struggles with CFS. Numerous attempts to contact social workers and support systems for additional support were not successful. At one point, this youth had been kicked out of her placement due to her anger, had been unable to contact her social worker to arrange further placement and faced a potential breach of her probation for not residing in the placement. This participant required, and was seeking, assistance in dealing with her anger.

With our program, she started to work on being able to identify when she was becoming angry, what her triggers were and what her anger felt like before it exploded. Within an exceptionally short period of time, she was able to identify and name the primary emotions causing her explosions. This was seen as an exceptional survival skill as she started to make connections between her life circumstances, her triggers and her methods of calming herself down. A few months later, after completing the program, this youth ran into a staff from the program at the gym. She gave this staff a hug and thanked her for her help, stating that working out was one of the methods she now used to regulate and express her emotions. She also stated she now had a place to live and full time employment. Though she continued to struggle with anger on a regular basis, with every success, she became stronger and more confident.

Later, this youth returned to the program and shared with staff that she is “doing well”, she had returned to school, had passed all her classes this past year and will be completing high school in the near future. She also shared that she was working part time while going to school. She also said her anger was no longer an issue for her.

Dear Macdonald Youth Services,

RE: THANK YOU

Good afternoon, my name is Shayne S. I was once a client of Macdonald Youth Services way back when I was around 16 or so, I am just about to turn 37 now but wanted … the pleasure of thanking you all for the help and support I received when I was living with you guys. I was living at 456 Edgewood Street back then and some of the staff at the time were Brock, Kim, DJ and a few that I cannot remember. I went through a lot when I was in my teens and the staff there helped me out in a big way. Words cannot truly express my feelings of my time there. I was a gay teenager who had been going to the bars and working the street and was helped out to get away from all that. I am still gay but because of the support from everyone there, I am more confident about myself and still think fondly of everyone. I especially wanted to single out Kim because she was the one who best supported me as I was going through so much back then, once on my birthday she even took me out for lunch and I remember it so very well. I was a part of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets back then and because of the help I received I went on to become an Officer in the Canadian Military, training other cadets. I am now about to start my training to become a Lieutenant Commander and am looking forward to being a Commanding Officer of a cadet unit in British Columbia. I would say it was the upbringing that I received from MYS that made this all possible. In closing I want to once again say THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HELP AND SUPPORT.

Shayne - Lt. (N)

Our program assists with the growth of its clients by being aware that growth is very different for each person. An Aboriginal woman with a challenging history and the mother of two children came to us for help. She wanted to go to school, but thought it was too late in the year to apply. She was also uncertain whether or not EIA would approve and provide financial support for her to attend school. In spite of the fact that it was July, we encouraged her to apply, directed her to various funding sources and helped her make a case with EIA to attend school. The young woman was extremely capable, but was unsure how to navigate the systems. We followed her though the process and supported her as she found her way. She was dealing with band funding, EIA funding, and possibly student aid funding. She also applied to the educational fund at MYS and was awarded transportation monies. It was quite a feat given that many of the systems are dependant on the other systems to give them information before funds could be approved and released. Recently at a community forum at Red River College our participant appeared as a guest speaker and in a very emotionally charged testimonial, thanked Life Train for the support she received to realize her dream.

Two sisters have been accessing our services for over a year now, on a fairly regular basis. Their mother suffered from addiction issues since the girls were very little. Both girls were put into child welfare care at an early age but always maintained a relationship with their mom. Their mom committed suicide and the girls often talk to YRC staff about their mom’s untimely death. Their conversation with staff is usually about how much they miss their mom. They also talk about what haunts them, and their own struggles to overcome the feelings to not go down the same path she did. Staff have spent a lot of time with the girls helping them acquire the life skills they need to move on and into an Independent Living situation. The girls have often said to staff that they like coming to our facility because everyone lets them talk and they feel heard.

She was a girl identified by various systems (hospitals, crisis units, the province, etc.) as an extremely high-needs girl. She was highly aggressive and suicidal. SIP program worked with her for two years to overcome her behavioural patterns and obtain the necessary life skills to prepare her for the future. Over time these troublesome behaviours diminished and she returned to live in her hometown. She now has a young child, works part-time and lives with her partner and his family. When asked if she ever resorts to previous behaviours, she replied, “I never do those silly things anymore” and thanked us for helping her through her time in need.

One client came to Life Train in a fragile and distraught manner. She had contacted many crisis lines and emergency services with no success. She presented herself as an extremely terrified individual, but as she began to visit us on a regular basis, we saw a very sensitive, aware and intelligent young person. Her story unfolded; anxiety was a main component in her life and she looked to her mother for constant reassurance. She wanted to do something productive with her life, but never followed through in achieving her goals. She came with many psychological labels and tended to talk in circles. We soon realized she had the inability to focus, so we helped her plan a speech and accompanied her to the doctor. He refused to prescribe her medication, dismissing her behaviour as having many “disturbed, psychological issues”.

With the help of Life Train, she didn’t give up. She continued to see us and we gave her the hope that no one else would – that she wasn’t disturbed and indeed could conquer this setback with the right help. Finally her determination and hard work paid off.

We are pleased to know that she recently received proper medication for her inability to focus, has moved upstairs from her mother, is working and plans to go to school in September.