Dan’s Legacy’s Current Programming and Partners
Youth who are affected by childhood trauma and abuse can realize their goals once they learn to manage personal issues such as depression, anxiety, eating and sleeping disorders as well as addiction.
In partnership with other community-based agencies, our counsellors provide the therapy and life-skills programs designed to empower our clients to succeed:
AUNT LEAH’S PLACE
Aunt Leah’s Place in New Westminster is a registered charity that assists young mothers and youth in foster care with supported housing.Our counsellors provide one-to-one counselling sessions and life-skills workshops which help them stabilize within their supported housing programs. For those who need longer-term counselling we continue to provide that support. Aunt Leah’s Place has entered into a new partnership agreement with BC Housing that will greatly increase their capacity to offer assistance to youth in their Support Link, Link and Thresholds programs. Dan’s Legacy has been invited to provide the mental health component to this expansion of their services, raising the total number of our clients at Aunt Leah’s Place from 100 youth to 135.
COAST MENTAL HEALTH
Since September, 2017 we have provided counselling support to the students enrolled in Coast Mental Health’s Culinary Skills Training Program, helping to increase their ability to receive the necessary education and work experience needed to overcome barriers to employment. Each student with whom we worked graduated from the program. Our collaboration with Coast Mental Health has had measurable and positive outcomes, and we have recently entered into a new agreement to continue counselling services for the next two intakes.
KWIKWETLEM FIRST NATION
We provide also counselling and life-skills programs to the youth living both within and outside of the Kwikwetlem First Nation community.
BROADWAY YOUTH RESOURCE CENTRE
In 2019 we will begin a new partnership with the Broadway Youth Resource Centre (BYRC), providing counselling, life-skills, an exercise program under the supervision of a certified fitness instructor, and a Femme Empowerment Workshop. We also help support clients with their Person’s with Disability (PWD), Adult Youth Agreement (AYA) and post-secondary tuition applications to the Tuition Waiver Program with the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training.
CWENENGITEL ABORIGINAL SOCIETY
The Cwenengitel Aboriginal Society has operated a men’s recovery house in Surrey for over twenty years. It’s a place where Aboriginal men may live while addressing drug and alcohol addiction, and receive help to successfully reintegrate into the community. There is a strong focus on mental, physical, spiritual and emotional healing. Dan’s Legacy counsellors work with the residents in the group home, and Elders from the society lead workshops on traditional cultural practices to the youth taking part in other Dan’s Legacy programs.
RAY-CAM COOPERATIVE CENTRE / RICHER INITIATIVE
Dan’s Legacy’s Program Director currently participates in a Responsive Intersectoral Children’s Health, Education and Research Initiative (RICHER) table at the Ray-Cam Cooperative Centre in East Vancouver. This program from Children’s and Sunnyhill Hospitals refers youth to our therapists who they see as their client and can use our counselling program.
Programming and Partners in Development
We have identified a need in East Vancouver for specialized counselling services for youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), high functioning Autism/Asperger’s, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), as well as youth affected trauma and poverty. After the success of our “Supported Program for Youth with FASD” pilot program in Surrey (2017-2018) we plan grow this program in 2019 to give these youth a secure and safe place to meet and bond, and then opt in to our counselling programs. This program will partner with various organizations currently working with these at-risk youth and will expand on the gains they have already made. Those organizations include the Ray-Cam Cooperative Centre, REACH Community Health Centre, Broadway Youth Resource Centre, and RICHER Health.
MUSQUEAM INDIAN BAND
All of Dan’s Legacy’s therapists, two of whom are Indigenous, bring cultural and trauma- informed experience to their practice. We plan to sign an agreement with the Musqueam Indian Band to provide therapeutic counselling and life-skills programs to the Band’s members.