[Kathe]

@PHBSpark These are great resources! Thank you for sharing!

[Pat]

Thanks for these links Kathe! The Halton Youth Initiative just finished creating four toolkits filled with valuable resources including a practice brief, videos, infographics, and tip sheets focusing on the Youth Volunteer Life Cycle, Making the Case for Authentic Youth Engagement, Using Technology with Youth, and Youth + Equity. All of the toolkits consider life in the Covid-19 era. Check them out at – https://www.haltonyouth.com/resource-toolkits

[Pat]

These are great Kathe! We just finished compiling four toolkits based on our experience with the Halton Youth Initiative: Youth Volunteer Life Cycle, Making the Case for Authentic Youth Engagement, Using Technology with Youth, and Youth + Equity. All of the kits consider working in the Covid-19 Era and are filled with valuable resources including a practice brief, videos, infographic, and tip sheets. Check it out! http://ow.ly/hbaz50Kyh9E

[Kathe]

We’re continuing to add resources to our Knowledge Hub that explore the impacts of COVID-19 for diverse youth. For example:

• Resetting Normal: The Impacts of COVID-19 on First Nations, Métis and Inuit Youth (Report from Canadian Women’s Foundation)
• The Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Shifting to a Collaborative, Prevention-Focused Response in a Large Urban Area (Report from Covenant House Toronto and Making The Shift)
• It’s Difficult to Grow Up in an Apocalypse: Children’s and Adolescents’ Experiences, Perceptions and Opinions on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada (Report from UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti)
• The Racism is a Virus (Toolkit from Act to Change)
• Strategies to Mitigate the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child and Youth Well-Being: A Scoping Review Protocol (Academic Article published by BMJ Open)

Do you have resources to share? Do you have questions about your work with youth that have yet to be explored? Get in touch and let me know!

[Kathe]

Summer is here and we know that more and more youth programs are returning to an in-person format or reimagining how to offer hybrid (online and in-person) options to participants.

YouthREX has been curating resources throughout the pandemic to support your work with youth — from reports on the impacts of COVID-19 to best practices for building community, we’ve got you covered!

Be sure to visit this collection of resources on our Knowledge Hub and share how you’re continuing to ‘pivot’ in your youth work practice.

[Kathe]

You may remember learning about Ability Online in our November 2020 webinar, Cultivating (Online) Community for Youth. I wanted to share their platform for youth living with different abilities, MyAbility.ca.

This safe and secure online environment is designed for young people to socialize, make new friends, learn new skills, build confidence, and have fun. Members can connect with peers, share experiences, join discussions, explore content, and find mentors. (Users under the age of 18 can register with parental/caregiver consent, and users over the age of 18 can join the young adult community.) As someone living with a disability, I know that I would have appreciated connecting with others who had similar experiences when I was younger. Visit MyAbility.ca for details!

[Kathe]

As we continue to navigate the shifting challenges and demands of the pandemic, YouthREX continues to expand its collection of resources to respond to these shifts and to support your work with youth.

I wanted to highlight a few recent reports that may be of particular interest:

1) Hopeful Resilience: The Impacts of COVID-19 on Young Ontarians
Young Ontarians United shares findings from research with over 500 youth across the province and calls for youth-led solution-building.

2) Change the Game: A Study Focused on Youth Sport Access, Engagement & Equity Factors in the Wake of the Pandemic
MLSE Foundation and the University of Toronto engaged almost 7,000 youth to understand sport and play-related access, barriers, and equity factors in the wake of the pandemic.

3) Preventing a Lockdown Generation: A Plan to Support Canada’s Youth in Post-Pandemic Recovery
YWCA Canada and YMCA Canada outline challenges faced by youth, ages 18 to 30 years old, in light of the pandemic, and proposes policy responses to ensure youth recover and are resilient in the face of future crises.

Check out these and other resources on our Knowledge Hub!

[Kathe]

I can hardly believe that this week marks one year since the WHO officially declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic. Since that time, YouthREX has pulled together an extensive collection of resources, created and curated to respond to the changing needs of youth workers (and of youth, families, and communities, too). One that we keep coming back to is Leading Groups Online: A Down-and-Dirty Guide to Leading Online Courses, Meetings, Trainings & Events During the Coronavirus Pandemic. What resources have supported your work in the shift to online programming? What’s working (or not working!) for you that might support others?

[Kathe]

Some of the tools here might be useful.

How are you all capturing the impacts of your programming changes in a context that is constantly shifting?