The Youth Navigators will provide person centered, trauma informed support to youth ages 11-18 that includes:
Crisis intervention
The Youth Navigators will support the client and the family to both provide prevention and intervention by connecting to youth, appropriately assessing, case planning, connecting them to programs/ services, and providing case management and follow up to ensure the clients needs are being met.
Utilization of the Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) model that identifies youth at risk and pre-emptively creates plans to support the youth so that larger scale issues and/or incidents are mitigated will be utilized. The Navigator would utilize this model to bring service providers together to articulate strategies to support a youth and mitigate risk, clearly identifying the role each service provider has to reduce chaos in response, potential gaps and/or duplication of responses.
Connection to resources
Resources exist in Nunavut, however are not readily accessibly in Kinngait. The Navigator will have access to technology in order to facilitate appointments with medical, mental health, addictions and other supports in Nunavut, specifically in Iqaluit and available nationally where they are not available in Nunavut. Connection to resources will also include culturally specific resources such as classes, time on the land, skills development, etc.
Example: counselling available virtually.
Appropriate Assessment completion
Completion of assessments to measure resiliency, well being, needs, emotional capacity, etc. These would then be utilized to appropriate determine support and care plans for the clients. This would also help to identify further need for supports and articulate clearly what that support needs to be. It removes the guess work and time and energy trying to support a client without knowing the how. This information is important for many service providers to be able to accurately assess need in community, positioning of resources and interventions, development of new resources and return on investment for those resources.
Ongoing support and relationship building
Connection has been proven to reduce addiction and suicide ideation. It increases attachment, well being, resiliency and capacity within youth. By providing relationship-based services and building rapport with the youth, modelling and teaching can occur, community capacity can be built and youth can be empowered to make healthy choices based on their wants and needs.
Interagency Participation/ Collaboration
The Youth Navigators will participate in interagency meetings. Through triaging and navigating, the Youth Navigators will appropriately create dialogue with service providers and provide the overarching case management. This will reduce pressure on other resources (education, CFS), allowing for cohesive responses to prevention and intervention to occur.
For more information, please contact Nunavut@theopendoors.ca
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