FRAYME 2023

The Foundry service model is based on best practices and research evidence, along with learnings from Foundry centres already in operation. Foundry is removing barriers and increasing access to quality care by bringing together and intentionally integrating a variety of health and social services through meaningful partnerships in order to connect care pathways, to make services easier to navigate, and to support youth to live a good life. 

A young person may walk into Foundry for a single, discrete counselling session and not come back for months, or they may access various services during an episode of care, needing support throughout a period of greater need. Regardless of the pattern of service access, Foundry aspires to provide care in a holistic and integrated way within our integrated youth services (IYS) model from the moment young people and their families access our services to when they are connected with a service provider best suited to meet their needs at that moment in time. This seamless experience requires careful planning, attention to detail, and a commitment to not just co-locate services, but to integrate them with intention.

Foundry is committed to cultural agility, safety and humility in our work. Foundry recognizes the historical and ongoing impact of colonialism and is committed to honouring the teachings and history of Indigenous Peoples and communities, including First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous communities. 

Foundry understands that in order to provide effective methods of practice for healing, care and medicine, we must look beyond the narrow and limited scope of colonial constructions and integrate perspectives and approaches that honour the rich history of the wisdom and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples as part of our service model. 

This includes Indigenous knowledges of well-being as a balance of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, with an understanding that holistic wellness must also include the broader social, economic, cultural and environmental determinants of health.  

Foundry is committed to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, recognizing the intersecting and complex identities of the youth and families we serve. The Foundry service model recognizes that access to care and services that meet the needs of the diversity of youth requires culturally agile and responsive services and care providers. 

Our services are continuously being designed or adapted to meet youth at their unique developmental stage (whether they are transitioning into adolescence or adulthood) and within the context of additional barriers they may experience based on factors such as gender, race, geography, ability, religion, income, substance use and discrimination, among others. Centres provide services that are agile and reflect youth identities, including group activities that are for specific cultural or language groups or that are led by gender and sexually diverse peers.

At Foundry, we recognize the value and importance of incorporating the lens of lived experience and empowering young people and families in all aspects of our work. Foundry acknowledges youth, family and members of the wider community as local and provincial champions and recognizes that their voices are key to enhancing service experiences of young people and families across the communities we serve. 

We strongly believe that meaningful, reciprocal engagement helps inform and enhance experiences across all levels of our organization, including program development, policy and planning, service delivery, clinical education, communications and digital strategies, quality improvement, evaluation and research.   

Foundry strives to help young people connect with resources to help them navigate their way to wellness and well-being. Part of the solution is creating opportunities for social connection, and Foundry’s youth engagement network offers this as a starting point. 

Foundry is also committed to supporting families and recognizes the interdependency between young people, families and those who support them in community. Engagement opportunities often occur through advisory committees and includes activities related to giving feedback, adding the voice of lived experience, informing policies and practices and shaping service delivery.

Title: Using Racial Caucusing to Support an Anti-Racist Workplace    

Presented by: Seren Friskie

Authors: Seren Friskie, Sukhdeep Jassar, Toni Carlton, Karen Tee, Gurvaan Maan, Josh Rasalan, Al Raimundo, Kyra Faber, Alaa Akl.

Time: 11am – 12pm

Presentation type: CONCURRENT SESSION BLOCK 1B – Workshop 

Title: Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable: Indigenous Resurgence in a Colonized World Foundry BC 

Speakers: Raymond Jordan Johnson-Brown 

A Two-part workshop: 

1. Exploring the journey of actively applying two-eyed seeing within Foundry’s Network we will look at the successes and growth areas learned throughout implementation. 
2. We will guide participants through our tips/tricks for engaging within colonized systems with Indigenous teachings that centre collective wellness as a starting ground. 

 

 

Time: 12pm – 1pm 

Presentation type: CONCURRENT SESSION BLOCK 2C – Workshop 

Title: Erase the Shame: A Conversation around South Asian Youth Mental Health 

Speakers: Avneet Dhillon 

Mental Health is a highly stigmatized and suppressed topic in the South Asian community. This can lead to discrimination against those who experience it (Multani 2017), acting as a significant barrier to health seeking, diagnosis and treatment – further deepening the social marginalization surrounding mental health in the South Asian community. With an increasing population of South Asian Youth in Canada, it is important that the diverse voices and unique experiences of the population are heard. Through storytelling, youth can contribute towards de-stigmatization of mental health within their community. Health professionals and services can recognize these experiences and further tailor their services to specific cultural nuances and understandings. 

Erase the Shame: A Conversation around South Asian Youth Mental Health – Presentation PDF download 

 

 

Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm 

Presentation type: CONCURRENT SESSION BLOCK 4B – Workshop 

Title: Uncovering what mental health and recovery means to youth ages 12-15: A Deliberative Dialogue 

Speakers: Cassia Warren, Maya Parmar, Sonya Tsou 

Younger youth ages 12-15 often lack a voice in health care research and practice. Instead, parents/caregivers or service providers make decisions about their care, usually without input from the youth themselves. As such, there is little known about how youth understand their mental health and what their needs are for recovery. We use patient-oriented research methods in the stages of design, collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination to gather evidence on what is meaningful in the mental health journey of youth 12-15 through qualitative interviews. The resulting themes relate to connecting with others, nature, and themselves; doing things that they enjoy; and being in trusting, safe, and judgment-free environments. In this workshop, youth will facilitate deliberative dialogues on: Where would this information improve your service experience or programs aimed at youth? How can it be used to positively impact youth ages 12-15? And what knowledge mobilization is needed to get there? 

Uncovering what mental health and recovery means to youth ages 12-15: A Deliberative Dialogue – Abstract PDF download 

Uncovering what mental health and recovery means to youth ages 12-15: A Deliberative Dialogue – Presentation PDF download 

 

 

 Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm 

Presentation type: CONCURRENT SESSION BLOCK 4C – Workshop 

Title: Journey towards Organizational Anti-Racism 

Speakers: Alicia Enreli, Simone Maasen, Sukhdeep Jassar 

As a provincial network of Integrated Youth Services in BC, Foundry is addressing systemic barriers, such as racism, colonization and oppression. Youth and family wellness is impacted by racism in multiple ways including, access to care, feelings of worth, and implicit and explicit biases of care systems. Foundry is committed to changing the organizational culture in health care to realize better outcomes and safer experiences for Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC) who access Foundry services, both virtually and in physical spaces. Since 2020, Foundry has led a working group with youth and representatives from leadership across the network. This working group co-created an intentional antiracist organizational assessment tool with external consultants to pilot at the backbone organization and with two centres in the network. The assessment acts as a catalyst for change that expands anti-racist practice beyond the usual educational or quantitative practices.

Time: 10am – 11am 

Presentation type: CONCURRENT SESSION BLOCK 6A – Workshop 

Title: Skills Squad; an adapted DBT therapy for youth with cognitive challenges 

Speakers: Sarah Adair, Micheline Low and Jennifer Wide

Foundry Vancouver-Granville provides care to youth struggling with complex mental health challenges (trauma, addictions, multiple diagnoses). To add to the complexity, impaired cognition can be part of the picture, contributing to further social and emotional challenges. Previous group therapy developed for these socioemotional challenges rarely accounted for the needs of individuals with cognitive challenges. We aim to implement a therapy that helps youth to develop emotion and social skills considering their cognitive capacity. Specifically, an adaptation called the Skills System (Brown, 2011) was implemented. This program originated from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), a therapy designed initially for individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder and emotion regulation challenges. The Skills System teaches concepts of DBT in a way that is more suitable for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities (e.g., relatable language, visuals, real-life examples, repetition). We aim to explore the effectiveness of implementing this program to the youth population we serve. 

Skills Squad; an adapted DBT therapy for youth with cognitive challenges – Abstract PDF download 

Skills Squad; an adapted DBT therapy for youth with cognitive challenges – Presentation PDF download 

 

Time: 10am – 11am 

Presentation type: CONCURRENT SESSION BLOCK 6B – Workshop 

Title: Integrating Youth Generated Content into Digital Strategy to Foster Trust, Understanding, and Connection. 

Speakers: Sarah Wood, Michelle Rogers 

User-generated content is an integral part of Foundry’s digital strategy. We implement this by prioritizing young people’s voices and lived experiences throughout our digital strategy. Our youth and family advisors create content they are passionate about, find meaningful, and feel will draw their peers in to engage in our social channels. This form of content allows social channels to directly connect audiences peer to peer, increase engagement, and develop a more personal relationship with your users. We will be sharing the impact of Youth Generated Content on organizational awareness, and engagement. We hope that by presenting our work, participants will feel they can do the same and include their users directly in their digital strategies, especially youth and family-facing organizations.