A new youth peer support program is being offered in Kingston in the new year via a partnership between United Way of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington and Resolve Counselling. From left: Tara Everitt, Director of Community Services at Resolve Counselling, youth peer supporters Jake Staley, Zach Hartwick, and Charlie Lundy, and Resolve youth peer facilitator Danny McLaren pictured at Resolve Counselling in downtown Kingston on December 14, 2022. Meghan Balogh/The Kingston Whig-Standard/Postmedia Network jpg, KI
A pilot program in Kingston is matching youth struggling with addiction and mental health issues with supportive peers who have lived through similar experiences.
The Youth Peer Support Program is being offered through a partnership between United Way of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) and Resolve Counselling, and was developed in response to service gaps identified by a special youth mental health committee formed by Kingston Health Sciences Centre and United Way.
“This was a community initiative that started pre-pandemic, and it came out of the United Way Youth Homelessness initiative, who recognized that young people in our community could really benefit from peer support,” Tara Everitt, director of community services at Resolve Counselling, said. “We worked with United Way to identify what this program could look like.”
A peer support model exists in mental health services for adults across the region, but this is the first program of its kind to support youth in crisis. It will be available to young people from 16 to 24 years old, first by referral through local youth support agencies like One Roof, Home Base Housing, Family and Children’s Services of Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, the Maltby Centre and Addictions and Mental Health Services KFLA.
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Planning for the project halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the recent hiring of youth peer facilitator Danny McLaren has helped the program move forward. Youth will begin to have access to the program early in the new year, with hopes to expand from referral-only and open it to the general public at a later date.
“At the beginning stages of this program, we consulted with youth advisory boards and youth embroiled in a number of services in the community,” McLaren said. “One of the main things they said again and again was that they would like a way to build positive peer relationships, especially coming out of addiction.”
Living a life of active addiction, relationships with fellow users is often the only social exposure young people have, McLaren explained.
“This is a way to have positive social interactions that aren’t necessarily predicated on doing drugs together,” they said. “It also fills a need. A lot of youth services exist, but still youth fall through the gaps. This is one piece in a network of care, and provides social connection based on hope for recovery.”
Resolve Counselling, with grant money secured through United Way, has hired four youth peer supporters to act as mentors.
Each youth peer supporter will initially work with two individuals as they go through training and gain some experience.
“It’s very exciting to have those folks,” McLaren said.
The four youth peer supporters are in their early 20s and bring a wide variety of lived experiences to the table to help them connect with young people in need.
Zach Hartwick said he grew up in an abusive foster home and ended up living on the streets and in substance abuse situations at a young age because of that upbringing.
“I wasn’t taught how to take care of myself or other people, or how to care for people,” Hartwick, 22, said. “There were a lot of things I never learned that I should have learned as a kid.
“All the people that were feeding me drugs seemed like my friends and seemed to want the best for me. I didn’t have a place to go. Winters were scary living on the streets. I lived that way for a few years.”
Hartwick is now 11 months clean and wants to use their life experience to help others find the inner strength and motivation to change.
“I didn’t know how to change what I was doing,” they said. “I didn’t feel like I could do anything, not only not being taught how to do things but always having been told I couldn’t do anything (growing up) had a huge effect on me. For a long time I thought I couldn’t do any better.”
Zach Hartwick said he grew up in an abusive foster home and ended up living on the streets and in substance abuse situations at a young age because of that upbringing.
“I wasn’t taught how to take care of myself or other people, or how to care for people,” Hartwick, 22, said. “There were a lot of things I never learned that I should have learned as a kid.
“All the people that were feeding me drugs seemed like my friends and seemed to want the best for me. I didn’t have a place to go. Winters were scary living on the streets. I lived that way for a few years.”
Hartwick is now 11 months clean and wants to use their life experience to help others find the inner strength and motivation to change.
“I didn’t know how to change what I was doing,” they said. “I didn’t feel like I could do anything, not only not being taught how to do things but always having been told I couldn’t do anything (growing up) had a huge effect on me. For a long time I thought I couldn’t do any better.”
“I feel like there’s not a lot there in institutions to trust,” Lundy said. “Hopefully I can be the person that I wish I had when I was really going through it. We’re youth, we’re at that age where we understand the kind of things people might be going through.”
Jake Staley is 24 years old. He dealt with feelings of anger, living as what he refers to as an “evil person who didn’t care about anyone but himself,” leaving a loving family behind and pursuing a dark path.
“I’ve lived a long life of crime, drugs, incarceration, just a lot of bad things went on in my life,” Staley said. “It took me a long time to figure out that I wanted to change and turn my life around for the better. When I finally did, I started working closely with One Roof to secure my sobriety and get myself meaning and self-worth.”
Staley said he knows now that he wants to “live the straight life.”
“I want to keep doing better not only for everybody around me, but for me, and if I can help even one person it would all be worth it to me. If I could just help one person.”
