The transition to adulthood can be a confusing one, made moreso for young people without the resources to sort out ‘what’s next’. A new program from YWCA Muskoka and hosted by The Door Youth Centre aims to help.
The Getting Ahead for Young Adults program stems from a similar adult program that the YWCA has been running for several years. Targeted at 17-29 year olds, the program will cover many of the same topics but with a youth twist, says co-ordinator, Liz Angell. “It will look at where they are at, the situation they are in, barriers in community that are preventing them from progressing, and available resources, and will allow them to build a network within the group. It’s for youth who are stuck – who don’t know what they want to do, maybe they’re in a minimum wage job and struggling to make ends meet, maybe they’ve been rejected by family members or have gone through addiction.”
The twice-weekly sessions, which start on October 24, include free dinner and gift cards for local eateries like Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s.
Facilitating the group are The Door’s executive director James Hunt, and Kate Quinlan, who has worked with the adult Getting Ahead program.
“Growing up in Muskoka, I myself experienced living up in poverty and because of my involvement with many other organizations in Muskoka, I’m very much aware that poverty and housing are big issues not only in Huntsville but across Muskoka,” said Hunt. “To me, working directly with youth and running a youth centre, it made a lot of sense to support local youth by offering them the opportunity to go through this Getting Ahead program.”
Hunt said that The Door is known in the community for working with ‘at-risk’ youth, “but I think often our perception of what at-risk means can be very different. For a lot of people, at-risk means doing drugs and abusing alcohol and those kinds of things which sometimes is true, but the most pervasive issue that would identify at-risk teens in our community is poverty. A lot of single parent homes, a lot of work in the area is seasonal minimum wage, a lot of families are working multiple part-time jobs trying to get by. Our youth are growing up in poverty with no real means of climbing out of it.”
(Getting Ahead for Young Adults) is designed for youth or young adults who are looking to figure out ‘what’s next in life for me?’
James Hunt
He says he sees many young people at the door who are in transition – who have recently graduated or are about to and don’t have post-secondary plans.
“So they are in this limbo where they may be still be at home but won’t be much longer. Or maybe they are out of home already but kind of struggling to sort it all out,” said Hunt. “It’s important to me to be able to offer them the tools to plan a course of action that will bring them out of poverty.”
Young people interested in the program can register on the YWCA Muskoka website or call 705-645-9827. See the poster below for more information.
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