Transforming practices, resilience and technology highlight child advocacy conference

“What we’re understanding in our studies is about helping kids expand their identities, to know their possibilities, as well as enhance their sense of control and their relationships. A lot of children coming out of more stressed or disadvantaged environments don’t perceive that university or college is part of their script or storyline,” he explains.

“In my work, when we bring in a child who has no family member that’s ever gone to college, but then they’re in a college environment, the idea of one day attending post-secondary becomes not so intimidating. You’ve now added it to their storyline. I’ve never seen this model anywhere else in the world.”

Close to 300 people attended the conference, which Dr. Ungar also applauded because of just how diverse the crowd was, discipline-wise. Those in attendance represented school administration, teaching, children’s services, social work, first responders and local government, just to name a few.

“The whole point of a child advocacy centre is not just asking the child to change, you’re asking the system around the child to adapt to the child’s needs, and we all have to take some responsibility for helping the child heal,” he says.

“When you add a polytechnic campus into the mix, suddenly you’re embedding them with a whole bunch of people who’ll look at them as not ill, but children with capacity. There’s a subtle but great message there, in that it’s saying you’re not just going to be hidden because something bad has happened to you.”

Ungar has, over the last five years, undertaken research through what’s called the RYSE Project, which honed in on two locales in South Africa, as well as Drayton Valley, Alta. The research looked at how oil and gas production, plus climate change, have large impacts on social, economic and environmental systems which affect young people’s mental health and overall wellbeing.

Also keynote speakers at the conference were Dr. Alina Turner, co-founder/co-president of HelpSeeker Technologies, and Sheldon Kennedy CM AOE OM, co-founder of Respect Group.

Rob Moltzahn, CACAC Strategic Partnership Lead, shares that RDP recently hired three researchers to assist the centre in ensuring its practices are best suited to help the diverse needs of children going forward.

“We’re terming it a learning health system. We want to be learning every day, as we know there are going to be advances in things we can to do to build on the research which existed before we came along. Today was about taking the knowledge we have today and putting it in the hands of those who provide services for children,” says Moltzahn.

“What the dream has always been is to build this place for kids who need mental health support. The question was what can we do to make sure the kids come in, tell their story, but then they’re taken care of and we don’t just send them off. When they leave, they’re healthy, fulfilled and ready to contribute human beings who’ve found resilience.”

More information about the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre is at centralalbertacac.ca.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Transforming practices, resilience and technology highlight child advocacy conference

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