Youth Homelessness – Life Skills

Vision: To work with the educational and employment sectors in our community to provide individualized, basic, survival and life skills to the homeless youth.

Youth Homelessness - Life Skills Training Meeting
July 24, 2012

Resources for homeless youth

 

Attendance: Tony Veit, Angela McMahon, Michelle Tibbetts -ME Behavioral Health, George Myers – KBH, Ruth Saint Amand, John Markoe-New Beginnings, Bodhi Simpson, Cindy Manson -Oct 18th, tentative date for next large forum bringing all 3 REM Homeless Youth initiatives together and all interested stakeholders. Goal for each Initiative group to present the work that has been completed over the past year and the next Plan of Action.

Life Skills Initiative work and progress of to present:

  • Mentors for homeless youth
    • Our subcommittee is working on mentoring possibilities.
  • Survey Tool to be given to youth through the computer Learning Labs, to gather info and suggestions from youth on how their needs are being met and what they need further.
    • Will send Ashalie Wark’s initial “survey work-in-progress” to all, especially George, John & Michelle.
    • Tony suggested finding $$ or donated items to give to youth completing survey as incentive
    • Angela recommended partnering with community to help with these incentives (example of Oakland Baptist Church supplying contents for the Backpack Program).
  • Video vignettes:
    • Working with MMTC’s Mass Communication course to develop. Dave Boardman will be instructor, he’s already been contacted by Tom McNeil and Angela will also connect with him
    • Identify issues/topics that youth face to be content of vignettes.
    • Utilize people familiar to youth (Tony, counselors, teachers) and youth/young adults (value of “peer” faces to youth in crisis)

-Discussed the PSA done by the Messalonskee student and the reception by Rotary when it was shown at their mtg.

  • -Angela will check with Paula Callan about bringing PSA to next mtg to show group.
  • -George wondered about having ACT Broadcast show on the local network, who is always looking for community content to air (Laura Guite of Central Maine TV is contact), and also linking to e-mail & Facebook pages. *We’d need to make sure appropriate legal & ethical conditions met due to age & vulnerability of youth whose faces appear in PSA. Might Dave Boardman & Paula Callan have guidance for these concerns?

-Discussed venture of getting several flip-cameras & giving to youth to film “MY Story” (which could be used as resource/vignette for homeless youth . Again, need to be clear on legal & ethical guidelines. Also, editing process, dispensing cameras (Tony will talk with Ashalie for ideas), type of Releases needed, donation/funding of cameras (George will contact Staples and Michelle will contact Wal-Mart). -Bodhi spoke about our responsibility to be cognizant of the homeless youth’s vulnerability and preventing re-traumatization of these youth who are currently living with homelessness and a myriad of other challenges.

-The group is interested in viewing the video that Colby students had done about Alternative Ed & Teen parent School Program students who were homeless. Cindy will check with The Maine Children’s Home about bringing the video to the next mtg.

-Discussed having youth be part of our committee, coming to mtg for a specific time slot to get their input about specific topics/content. Bodhi & Tony will look into possible youth candidates.

-Group is looking for guidance on youth involvement for production & content of vignettes, My Story videos, etc (Example: 10 Best Practices for Youth Video Production). Angela will check on this from public school’s perspective.

Meeting Wizard will be sent for August mtg (group wants August & September mtg to prep for October Forum).

                                                    
              Mentoring Sub group of Life Skills Homeless Sub-Committee
June 26, 2012

Present: Nancy Findlan, Bodhi Simpson, Nancy Souza, Wendi Richards, Tony Veit

This group is meeting to research potential mentoring programs for homeless/at risk youth. After some earlier meetings where we were looking at creating a program we stepped back and decided to research existing evidenced based programs to consider.

Next Steps:
1. Continue researching Evidenced Based Mentor programs and evaluate them based on the “Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring” checklist created by MetLife Foundation.

  • Tony will research Peer Mentor programs
  • Bodhi is researching Mass. Mentoring site
  • Nancy F. will research ONDCP, CADCA and NIDA sites2. Identify Potential Funding Sources for a Pilot Program. List to start include:
  • Staples
  • MetLife Foundation
  • ONDCP
  • Massachusetts Mentoring Site (has list of resources)
  • State Farm Insurance3. Identify agency(s) that are willing to take a pilot project on including applying for grants. The annual meeting in October may be the best time to recruit interested agency.Next Meeting of Mentoring sub group: Wed. August 1, 2013 8:30 at Youth Matter!

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