|
University
Street Ministry is dedicated to feeding and securing health
and housing for homeless youth and young adults in the
University District of Seattle, Washington. We provide a
safe environment where youth can access
nutritious meals five nights a week with our Teen Feed
program.
With our
Service Links for Youth program, we strive to create
trusting relationships with youth and provide timely
response to their needs. The youth who access our program
are between 13 and 25, economically disadvantaged, and often
have no safe options to reside
Teen Feed
- Serves over 10,000 meals each year to more than 400
homeless youth and young adults. - In 1989, nurses from the
University of Washington Medical Center noticed that many
street youth accessing the emergency room were severely
malnourished. The community responded, and faith groups,
service providers, neighbors came together to provide food
to the University District’s homeless youth population, and
Teen Feed was born. At the peak of the University
District’s street culture, Teen Feed received up to
150 guests an evening. Today the scene has changed, and we
average 40-50 guests each evening. Teen Feed is the
only provider of meals specifically to youth and young
adults in the University District open regularly on Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Teen Feed
Goals:
-
To provide a safe
and reliable source of nutritious meals five nights a
week.
-
To respond to
emergency or urgent needs among the youth served at Teen
Feed. This may include help in the form of transport to
the emergency room, bus tickets home, personal care
items, clothing, bus tokens or crisis intervention.
-
To facilitate
youth’s access to other services including case
management, healthcare and shelter. This is done through
a well trained group of volunteers and staff with skills
in active listening and needs assessment.
-
To increase
collaborations with service providers to serve youth
with a more comprehensive continuum of care.
Unique
Things Teen Feed Does:
-
Onsite case
management three nights a week.
-
Outreach from
several different programs (Seattle Youth Garden Works,
Seattle Education Access, Orion Center, 45th Street
Clinic, Public Health Nursing Students, and YWCA Working
Zone).
-
Teen Feed is the
largest meal program in the U-District.
-
Due to Teen Feed’s
low barriers to participation, we see some youth who are
unable to access any other programs.
Service
Links for Youth (SLY)
– Provides the only outreach case management to homeless
youth and young adults in the University District, offering
resources to provide transitions from the street, secured
employment opportunities and return to appropriate
educational tracks.
In 1998,
USM became concerned that many homeless youth were not
comfortable accessing traditional, agency-based services.
SLY was designed as a youth-centered, outreach-based program
to affirm the strengths of each participant to meet their
self-identified goals. With core values of harm reduction
and empowerment practices, SLY staff and youth address root
issues that contribute to homelessness. SLY is a unique
program in the University District: It is the only case
management program to work with the broadest range of youth
-- ages 13 to 25. SLY is also the only outreach-based case
management initiative in the U-District, meeting youth where
they are: on the streets and in program.
Service
Links for Youth
Goals:
-
To provide early and intensive
intervention with youth, and timely identification of
new youth.
-
To increase the youth’s awareness of
options for shelter and permanent housing, employment
and educational opportunities
-
To partner with youth toward meeting
self-identified goals that lead to stability and
housing.
-
To allow outreach case management support
to follow youth’s progress regardless of which services
he or she is accessing.
-
To increase collaborations with service
providers to serve youth with a more comprehensive
continuum of care.
Unique
Things Service Links for Youth Does:
-
SLY is
the only outreach case management program based
in the U-District.
-
SLY
serves the largest base of kids ages 13 – 25, youth
barred from other programs (we aren’t connected/tied to
a drop-in center) and are able to work with sex
offenders and youth with other behavioral or legal
issues that may prohibit them from accessing other
programs.
-
SLY,
being outreach-based, is more mobile that other case
management programs. We are able to drive youth to
appointments, meet youth away from the U District if
they prefer, go with youth to meet or reunite with
family. The possibilities are endless.
-
SLY has
a unique balance of professional and well-staffed with
unconventional and youth-led. Youth are given the
structure they need with the approachability they trust.
The
Youth We Serve: The youth
we serve are between 13 and 25 years of age, and come from a
variety of circumstances. A University of Washington study
found that 65% of the youth interviewed had no safe or
intact family home to return to. Many have been neglected
and/or abused, and many struggle with mental health issues
and chemical dependency. They may have been removed from the
home after an incident of abuse only to suffer more neglect
in foster care before running away. Others left home with
because their parents are dealing with their own issues
related to chemical dependency, financial hardship, abuse,
etc. Statistically, 40% of the youth we work with are not
welcome in their home because of their own struggles with
their GLBTQ (Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer &
Questioning) identity. Some may have left as the family
dissolved through divorce or domestic violence. Youth who
are runaways with safe and healthy homes to which they are
able to return usually do so on their own when the harsh
truths of life on the street become apparent. |
