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5682615-66675000right693420000Watari Counselling and Support ServicesAnnual Report19050461645002017-2018We acknowledge that we are privileged and honoured to be allowed to live and work on unceded Coast Salish Territory; the traditional lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Board of Director’s Chair Statement This year has been a time of real change and renewal for Watari.The Board has never worked harder. We have committed ourselves to grow and retain diversity in our membership and we have been putting out feelers in the community looking for new board members who will bring a fresh voice to our meetings. We had a successful Action Planning day for staff and Board in June and we are looking forward to a Strategic Planning day that is scheduled in November. -551497545275600This year was particularly hard for Watari and staff. We saw the loss of two long standing programs, The Day Program and the East Side Planning Table. Both these programs and their staff will be remembered for contributing unique, compassionate and skilled collaborative service to the community and the people we support.Currently, we are working on updating our website and promotional materials. This will aid us in giving a new face to Watari when we are bringing attention to our programs. We are also in the process of renewing our lease for the next 5 years. I would like to extend my thanks to Cal, Ingrid and Linda in particular for their work in this project. As we prepare to head into a new year, the Board is confident and optimistic for the future and believes that the change and challenge will energize us as an organization.Finally The Board would like to welcome Ingrid to her new position as Executive Director. These have all been big projects and the Board thanks Ingrid and all of the staff for their time and patience throughout this last year. Jessica Gossen, for the Board33140651962150052863850567000Thank you!!!2443163250507002017-2018Board of DirectorsJessica Gossen – ChairGail Mountain – Vice ChairCalvin Tompkins – Treasurer172053228225800Lara Croll – SecretaryMembers at LargeLinda HaleHala NugentDinna Marie WattAmrinder (Sunny) Singh SandhuWe are very grateful for our Board and their commitment to Watari. They have contributed many hours of strategizing and decision makingThat has brought us to this exciting place of renewal and planning for our future.We could not have achieved this without our many volunteers who have contributed to the success of all our programs. We have much gratitude to the staff for their ongoing commitment, their exceptional support to the community, and finally to the community in general for their trust and belief in what we do, and how we do it.Our Funders and Sponsors-58159653888740002314575825500040005001416050002095501282700002095501219200040671753473450038208863225800002592070645477500391477547555150041592547491650043053006456045004191003225800004197356454775003238502025650003914775196850000Our Community PartnersMinistry of Children and Family DevelopmentVancouver Police DepartmentFirst United ChurchVancouver Native Health SocietyYouth UnlimitedCovenant HouseUBC Medical studentsDirections Youth ServicesOppenheimer Park Carnegie Centre OutreachCottonwood Community Gardens15567032889200Woodland Community GardensCentury Health VancouverPacific Immigrant Resources SocietyThe Heart of the City FestivalBC Federation of LabourBC Centre for Disease ControlBC LibreAbbotsford Community Social ServicesKids Up FrontSarah McLachlan School Of MusicNight Hoops BasketballVancouver School BoardDouglas Park Community CentreStrathcona Community CentreBurnaby School BoardSage Transition HouseTupper Alternative SchoolStarbucksEastside Boxing211Work BCFrog Hollow Community CentreRaycam Co-OperativeRock Climbing Mentorship ProgramHorse Equine Therapy ProgramThe Chill ProgramUNYAFRAFCANative Education CollegeDouglas CollegeAdler UniversityCapilano UniversityHastings Urban FarmHives For HumanityRed FarmVACFSSKiwassaBritannia CommunityNew Chelsea Housing SocietyAtira Housing SocietyUGMThe BudzyCrabtree CornerShewayWomen CentreUBC Learning ExchangeDowntown Eastside Neighbourhood HouseWatari’s Amazing ProgramsCommunity Addictions Counselling TeamThis year I celebrated my 16 years working at Watari and in this last year I have worked with 30 different individuals who are working at getting their lives back from problematic substance misuse. Some of the challenges facing these people today are homelessness, poverty, effects of residential schools, violence and trauma, survivors of the foster system and 60’s scoop and involvement with the Ministry and child protection as well as multiple health concerns. We have also experienced lots of grief and loss around the Fentanyl overdoses which is a constant reminder of the high risk our people are facing. -1253172537147500 Friends and colleagues often ask how after 16 years of working in this area I have not “burned out”? My response is always the same, I feel “raised-up” and honoured to work with our Watari people. I explain that when people walk through our doors and ask for help they are believing in a lifestyle better than what they are living, and they have hope that they can turn their lives around and connect to family, health, and a belief in a future free from the restraints of an oppressive lifestyle. For some of our people, Watari is their first time experiencing counselling. The care and compassion we show gives a certain safety to people allowing them to finally let their guard down and open up. I am reminded of a young man whose first experience for accessing counselling was Watari. He has a story of a youth in and out of Foster Care and Group Homes. He became a youth on the streets and then a homeless adult using crystal meth and crack for over 5 years. He was in constant crisis and at times his mental health struggles made it hard for him to be at Watari in a respectful way, but we didn’t give up on him and eventually he was able to follow through with a treatment plan and attend a residential program. Today he is working full time and has custody of his daughter. He accesses Watari when he is feeling overwhelmed and needs a little support but mainly he is focusing on his daughter trying to give her a good start in life and perhaps the home and childhood he never had. People may call that “breaking the cycle”. At Watari we all know that having a place where you feel you belong, where you are treated with care and compassion and not judged is the setting for wonderful things to happen. I like to think that we offer all of this at Watari.Sandra Taylor, Substance Misuse CounsellorEastside Integrated Youth Outreach Team Seeing more than 140 youth monthly, the Eastside Integrated Youth Team includes three full time outreach workers, Matt, Mike and Lavern.? This program is funded through Vancouver Coastal Health, the City of Vancouver, and BC Housing. Attached to BC Housing funding, the youth team is able to offer a one-year housing subsidy for youth at risk of homeless, which has allowed numerous individuals they support to obtain and maintain market housing.Outreach workers connect and engage with youth, up to the age of 25, meeting them where they are at.? Early intervention is the key to building relationships with these vulnerable youths and assessing their needs,?providing support through lay-counselling, reconnecting young people with family, encouraging them to work through the issues that brought them to the street is a focus of the work.? Safety is a consideration that workers keep in mind when matching young people with other supports and services. The outreach team also provide individuals on the street with items needed to support their basic needs, which range anywhere from distributing food, water, clean clothes, or clean, unused harm reduction materials. 134778791662300Watari’s Eastside Integrated Youth Team manages to maintain connections with services in the community that interact with youth but aren’t sure how to assist them in negotiating the systems that are specific to youth. Working collaboratively with Ministry of Children and Family Development, Vancouver Police Department, First United, Vancouver Native Health Society, Directions Youth Services Centre, Urban Native Youth Association, Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society, Youth Unlimited, Covenant House, as well as countless other service providers, the team attempts to interact quickly and respectfully with young people to create pathways to employment, housing, education, or home.3876676142494000Aside from street outreach, the outreach team facilitates a youth drop-in at Vancouver Native Health Clinic which runs every Wednesday. This drop-in is run in conjunction with the clinic, UBC medical students, as well as other outreach providers to provide youth with a hot meal, groceries to go, support, and easy to access medical care. The team also runs a youth driven community kitchen (Youth Ultimate Community Kitchen, affectionately known as Y.U.C.K.) in conjunction with Directions Youth Services Centre outreach staff on Fridays with a focus on building life skills, food sustainability, and connection to community.Matt Jolliffe, Youth Outreach WorkerLatin American ProgramThe Latin American Program continue its development last fiscal year, the program has strong participation from Community members in planning and executing the different activities. These activities included: Food Security Projects – Community kitchens that had the support of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Vancouver Food Stash, Discovery Organics, we are grateful for their contributions as this has allowed us to secure most of the ingredients for our community kitchens and training. Community Gardens, we strongly believe in the importance of access to fresh produce and vegetables. A very enthusiastic group of Downtown Eastside Latin American community members, migrant families from the Lower Mainland and their friends and allies participated in the preparation and maintenance of the community garden. Once again we appreciate the contribution of Sole Foods, they kindly donated soil and plants to this year’s gardening season.-12519606139186700Migrant Families Network, with the support and coordination of Sanctuary Health Vancouver, the Migrant Network of families was able to continue holding their meetings every 3 weeks to advocate for themselves and to make Access Without Fear principle a reality. A new program was born as a result of the families’ decision to improve their access to food, in coordination with Foodstash Vancouver 25 families are part of the food box distribution program on weekly basis and the program is ready to double their capacity.In partnership with Pacific Immigrant Resources Society and Sanctuary Health we were able to support migrant women and their children with English classes and childminding on Saturdays. Cultural and other community events, the Latin American program was again an active partner in making the Alley Health Fair a successful event, cooking and serving food for 1200 people who enjoyed nutritious and delicious food prepared by our community kitchen members. The program was also a key partner in the celebration of Day of the Dead at Oppenheimer Park were we partnered with Carnegie Centre and Heart of the City Festival.Migrant Agricultural workers, in coordination with BC Federation of Labour, BC Centre for Disease Control, Abbotsford Community Social Services, BC Libre and Sanctuary Health we were able to organize a Health Fair and other outreach activities in different farms of the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley Berta PerezLatin American ProgramTransition into Independence Programs TIP – TIPIITIP 1332784212399400During the past year, 23 youth have participated in the Transitioning to Independence Program (TIP). TIP has continued to support young people to find and maintain market housing in Vancouver’s increasingly challenging rental market. Youth participating in TIP have shown determination and ingenuity in managing the realities of a low vacancy rate and increasingly high rents in the local rental housing market. Youth continue to see success with their self-identified goals, achieving greater stability and are becoming more independent. Program participants have engaged in group work around meal planning, decision making, community, social media, self-advocacy, expressing anger, goal setting, stress, personal responsibility, managing change, budgeting, boundaries, voting and other important areas of life-skills development. The fortitude, resiliency, and hope for a positive and healthy future have been evident among TIP program participants.Dustin Budden Transition into Independence – WorkerTIPIIDuring this past year 30 youth had participated in the Transition to Independence Program II. The TIP program has been able to provide continuous support to young moms, their children and young women who are pregnant and identify that substance misuse is a concern for them but feel ready to live independently.Watari has been able to support these amazing young moms and women with rent subsidy for market housing, housing search assistance, tenancy right education and life skill development in securing and sustaining safe housing, advocacy, outreach, one to one support, life-skills workshops, etc. We are able to facilitate their connections to other community supports, including but not limited to, employment programs, educational options, parenting supports, food banks, community meals and low cost necessities. Every time I have the opportunity to connect with these young moms, my heart fills out to see how courageous and resilient they are.Lavern Kelly – TIPII workerIndividualized Community Outreach ProgramSometimes the hardest thing for a young person to do is trust an adult. It can be even harder for Indigenous young people who have had experiences at home or within the government system of care that have been challenging and chaotic. The ICOP (Individualized Community Outreach) Program recognizes the value and impact of one-to-one relationships with youth that engage them where they hang out, focus on listening to what they need and act quickly to connect youth to services, supports and people that meet these needs. ICOP has been providing this one to one support to at-risk and high-risk VACFSS connected Indigenous youth in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley for over ten years. Typically, the ICOP worker connects with their youth at their home, school or in the community they are familiar with. The worker provides emotional support and insight to the youth when they are experiencing hardships and challenges such as bullying, social isolation, high-risk lifestyle and addiction. Often the worker coaches the youth around positive social and life skills. ICOP workers also support the youth in accessing community supports in the outdoors, arts and sports activities. Some of these community supports include the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, Night Hoops basketball, Rock Climbing Mentorship Program, Horse Equine Therapy Program, the Chill Program and many others. -1249965741243200Cultural connection has been a vital component of the ICOP connected youth’s healing journey, providing a spiritual connection as well as positive community and identity. ICOP workers and their youth have often engaged in activities such as beading, making regalia, attending Powwows and sweats and helping facilitate other Cultural opportunities such as canoe journeys. ICOP frequently liaises with Aboriginal agencies such as UNYA, FRAFCA and other Friendship Centres so the youth can engage in the activities offered as well as form positive relationships and friendships with other Indigenous youth. Over half of ICOP workers are themselves First Nations. Recruitment of prospective First Nation ICOP workers has been implemented at Native Education College (NEC), Douglas College and other Community Colleges as well as Indigenous communities throughout Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.ICOP workers also liaise with supports such as school, probation, mental health and others. The worker often attends Integrated Case Management, school and other meetings to help provide a voice and important perspective in the work they do for their youth. After receiving the initial VACFSS referral to start the support, ICOP workers keep in regular communication with the VACFSS social worker to get ongoing input and advice about their youth as well providing their own recommendations and reports. Kevin Crofton – ICOP SupervisorSTAR ProgramWhat were you thinking about in elementary school? When we go into any one of the 80 or so grade 4 to 7 classrooms in Vancouver, we are amazed at the depth and breadth of what kids consider these days. Sometimes the environment is front and centre; still other times, it’s homeless people they see on their way to school and the next week it’s bullying in the playground. No matter what is on their minds, when Watari’s S.T.A.R program counsellors show up, you can count on kids to be curious, engaged and enthusiasticS.T.A.R stands for ‘Stop Think Assess & Respond’ and is an education program that takes a ‘just say KNOW’ approach to drugs, safety, compassion and community. Each week during the school year – three mornings a week from 9 a.m. until noon – students in an elementary school somewhere in Vancouver are buzzing as they participate in quizzes and role plays that challenge them to think and act in a new and informed way.?Values, conflict and tricky situations are just a few of the topics that two skilled youth counsellors approach over the 4 or 5 sessions, all with intention of building resiliency skills and creating options that allow young people to stand up for themselves and others.Kevin Crofton-534860545529500STAR Program CoordinatorHealth Equity Collaborative?The Collaborative was formed in 2016, to promote improved health equity for gender and sexual minority communities in BC, by bringing together people with lived experience, health care professionals, policy makers, researchers, epidemiologists, and community leaders to create a common agenda for positive change. Funded by the Ministry of Health, Watari facilitated a dynamic two years’ development process.In the Spring of 2018, Watari put forth a call for an organization to assume administrative responsibilities for the project. PNBC was awarded this contract and will be acting as project manager for the roll out of the activities of the collaborative over the remaining two years of the project.Watari will continue participating in the monthly meetings and providing as much input as possible.Financial Administrator’s StatementAfter thirteen years of managing the financial aspects of keeping Watari ticking I can honestly say my job remains fun and I am happy to come to work. All the different programs and funding streams keep me hopping. The steady demands of serving the awesome staff and the fine people we support with whatever they need is both gratifying and continuous. Our annual audit is always a welcome challenge; it is also nice to have it over with for another year knowing all our ducks are in a row. At Watari we are welcome to wear many hats, I get a lot of pleasure from picking up our baking donations twice a week and coming in early to have everything set up; coffee made and treats out, ready for the folks coming in for the warmth and convivial atmosphere they can find here. One of my favourite extra activities is at Christmas time. My friends and I do a lot of baking, (my mom, darling mom, pays for the ingredients), and we fill up over 100 containers of treats for the counsellors and outreach workers to share with their people and the volunteers. Watari is a great organization, and I’m proud to work here. -58624771119662003011805305816000286384100266400330136523241000Jill Scott Executive Director’s StatementI am very thankful, honoured and privileged to be working beside such an inspiring group of individuals who are so committed to the support they give the community. This past year has brought a lot of different challenges both at the personal and organizational level, these challenges have made us stronger and more committed to the work we do. These collective efforts have given us achievements both internally and externally.Watari is now sitting at tables and networks that make important decisions for the community. In the past months we have participated at important community events.We are working on our action plan and preparing for to our Strategic planning session.We have committed to participate in important committees that are active and proposing changes that are fundamental to how the organization is going to continue supporting the community. We have a focus on strengthening our fundraising efforts, and embracing new ideas for the financial growth of our organization.142808031556100Finally, I want to highlight that we are very grateful for the committed, incredible individuals that have joined our teams in the last few months and sad for those who have left the organization to continue growing on their paths of life. We are forever grateful for the difference they have made during their time with us.182880062103000I am looking forward to another year in which we can continue grow as an organization and most importantly as a community. Thank you again for your continuous support to the work we do.Ingrid Mendez ................
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