Collaborative and culturally congruent
Established in the 1950s, Boscoville seeks out and implements best practices that promote the development of young people from birth to 30 years old. The organization is well-known in the Quebec education system but this project represents a first for its team.
“We asked ourselves why our program for the Cree community wasn’t recognized by a university,” explains Mohsen Romdhani, executive director of Boscoville. “That’s where it started and I hope other communities will want to participate moving forward, as well as other universities.”
Named “Mamouwechitutaau” — let’s all help each other, let’s work together — the program provides experiential, interactive training to educators to enhance their practices working with youth. The workshops include a lot of role-playing, along with a large focus on games, reflection circles and conversation.
“The aim is to make it as culturally congruent as possible,” says Tim Harbinson, a project manager and trainer at Boscoville. “It’s a very learning-by-doing environment. We’re trying to make it experiential to respond to that need.”
Emma Kroeker, a project manager at Boscoville, remarks that although the program’s specificity is one of its greatest challenges, it is also what makes the project fun, creative and emergent. She and Harbinson travel to the community once a month to provide different forms of training, coaching or support.
More than anything, she says the program is unique in that it is always evolving based on the feedback they receive from the management team and support staff at Youth Healing Services.
“We’re always asking for their input to make it adapted to the needs of the people we’re trying to support,” Kroeker says. “There’s a lot of participatory design processes as well.”
‘The enthusiasm is there’
When Maria MacLeod became director of Youth Healing Services in 2016, she thought the training program could benefit all her employees, not just front-line workers. When senior staff members agreed to follow the training, they soon realized it was useful for them as well.
“They’re really motivated about the program and the enthusiasm is there,” MacLeod says. “They’re excited to come to work because they know they have all these skills they gained from the trainings.”
Like MacLeod, the majority of the staff at Youth Healing Services are Cree. She notes that her educators often deal with very challenging circumstances in their work, including when youth go into crisis.
“They really know how to handle whatever situation. That’s what really makes me proud — they’re following this program and they’re happy about it.”
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