The Winooski Restorative Justice for Multicultural Youth Project, launched in 2020, is a collaboration between the Winooski School District, Spectrum Youth and Family Services, UP for Learning, and the City of Winooski with funding from the Vermont Department of Children and Families and an anonymous donor. Tis monthly column will highlight the Restorative Justice work happening across the district among different groups. For more information please visit our website by clicking here.

A fundamental part of professional learning for restorative justice is providing staff members opportunities to experience and become comfortable with restorative justice circles. We’ve been offering voluntary district-wide weekly restorative justice circles for staff. Trough this approach, staff are able to become more familiar with how circles operate before they’re faced with facilitating one for students. Staff are given the option of being a participant or circle keeper. A circle keeper facilitates and poses questions for everyone in the circle to respond to. They’re responsible for maintaining the space and ensuring the mutually agreed upon circle agreements are adhered to. A circle keeper plays multiple roles, not only do they hold the role of facilitator, but they’re also a participant too. Circle keepers meet with the Restorative Justice Coordinator to review the circle script and discuss their experiences.

The WSD Wellness Coordinator Jaycie Puttlitz, described her experience as a circle keeper: “Our circle topics often tackle issues that can be hard for people to discuss. Sometimes the topic is deeply thought-provoking, sometimes it evokes an emotional response. What I have found, is that the structure and respect at the foundation of the circle gives everyone in it an equal voice. Participants can safely voice their thoughts without the fear of a negative response from others. I wanted to lead circles for our staff because I was curious if restorative practices could have a positive impact on staff wellness. These restorative practices have been particularly helpful for staff this year as they bear the stress and anxiety of working in a pandemic. Having a time and space to open up and connect with colleagues has been incredibly important to staff wellbeing. And, I believe that the more we practice these circles as a staff the better we will be able to support our students in becoming circle keepers in our classrooms and community.”

Behavior Interventionist Mohamed Diop said: “Circle keeping has been a great experience holding space for our WSD staff and administrators to come together, listen to each other, share their authentic perspectives and learn from one another in trusted bubbles through prompts, or topics of discussion that are designed to connect us as employees, foster Restorative Justice, or practice approaches to treat and serve our students better in our school district.”

ELL Teacher Jean Plasse said: “I’m really glad my coworkers encouraged me to be a circle keeper. It’s really been a powerful way for me to connect with other people. I enjoy helping and this makes me feel like I’m helping in a powerful way. It’s not just something else that I do; it’s an important part of my Wednesdays. It makes me feel empowered, heard and helpful. I like making space for others and listening to what they have to say. It feels right. I also really appreciate the structure.”

High School Math Teacher Luke Dorfman said: “Participating in the staff circles this year as a circle keeper has been a source of joy for me, especially in the midst of so much turbulence and stress that comes with teaching during a pandemic. Having a consistent time and space to connect with my colleagues — to hear about their experiences and emotions and to share my own — has helped me remain balanced and centered. I have valued the opportunity to facilitate these spaces as well, giving others a chance to find
connection and community too. My skills as a facilitator have strengthened over time, and I have a growing understanding of and appreciation for the indigenous practices at the heart of circles. I look forward to continuing to learn and grow moving forward.”

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“When you are the adoptive parent of a teen struggling with depression/mood swings/alcoholism/eating disorder, your world is turned upside down. Instead of family Yahtzee games on a Friday night, you end up driving around looking for your daughter who has run away from home yet again. There is no respite from the fear of losing your child to dangerous choices.

Night after night, month after month, for years, her Dad and I tried every intervention including residential stays for her. Whenever she could, she would run away and we would be left in paralyzing fear for weeks on end until she’d call from points unknown and we’d send her a bus ticket home.

Throughout this time, I always prayed that she’d meet caring souls along the way who would literally offer her shelter. These are the angels among us. There was a kind female police officer in Syracuse who bought her a meal, a person in Texas who found her wallet and mailed it back to us, a mechanic in California who gave her a dog to keep her safe, a doctor in Louisiana who called me. And finally, when she came back to Burlington, she went to the Spectrum Shelter for a short time. What a relief to know someone out there cared!

The staff was warm, concerned and offered her just what she needed- a respite and a good dollop of respect. I was impressed then with the work that they did on behalf of at risk teens and my admiration for their work has grown over the years. With so much dysfunction in our toxic world, Spectrum is a voice for the disenfranchised of our teens (of which there are far too many and far too few services for). Thank you Spectrum for being the angels among us!

Epilogue : Our daughter is now in a long term committed relationship raising a beautiful son. She no longer runs from the world but instead has gone back to college and is getting straight A’s!”

Want to share your story? Share online by clicking here or contact
Charlotte Steverson at csteverson@spectrumvt.org.

Want to read more stories? Click here.

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Read below to learn more about the plan, process and timeline of the renovation over the next year and thank you for being part of our village of believers!

Creating Seamless Services for Spectrum Youth

The Drop-In Center provides hot meals, fresh clothes, showers, laundry, and one-on-one support to teens and young adults who are facing homelessness and other challenges.

Many of the youth we serve have a history of trauma and don’t trust adults. Our staff work hard to build trusting relationships with the youth who come into Drop-In. Often these youth don’t feel comfortable accessing our other programs with unfamiliar adults.

As Leslie Ferrer, Spectrum’s clinical director, recently said, “Many youth at Drop-In have been through a lot—they may have been abused, went through foster care, lived with dysfunctional families, etc. Drop-In is often the only place where they truly feel safe. Walking to another building for other services can be really hard for them. Having youth meet counselors in a space where they already feel safe is the best way to begin to address issues of trauma, depression, anxiety, and substance use.”

The Vault

The vault is a large, unused, windowless room (the size of a racquetball court) behind the Drop-In Center. Before Spectrum, it was used to store furs.

We would like to turn the empty vault into usable space for counselors, case managers, tutors and mentors to meet with youth that come to the Drop-In Center. The vault will yield two floors of usable space, totaling 1,500 square feet.

The Renovation

The renovation will take about four months and be completed in two stages, so that the disruption to youth and staff is minimal. Renovating the Drop-In Center and vault will:

• Convert the Vault into two floors and 1500 square feet of useable space for counselors, mentors, case managers, and tutors to meet one-on-one with youth.
• Expand and relocate the kitchen to make it easier to serve meals for 20-35 people. (Right now, our kitchen is like one you’d find in a small apartment and cooking for so many is a challenge).
• Add a computer library separate from the main room so youth can focus while they work.
• Give youth a bigger range of options for how to use the space based on how they are feeling that day, such as sitting in a window with a friend, chatting in a group, playing a game at a table, or even cozying up in the quiet nook.
• Make sure the Drop-In Center’s doors are open for youth who need help this year.

Renovating the Drop-In space will create more room for youth, along with a larger kitchen, an additional shower, a library, a quiet nook, and a meeting room. The vault renovation will create meeting spaces for our mental health counselors, life skills coaches, and tutors to meet with youth.

How YOU Can Give

You can make the Drop-In Center more welcoming and warm for youth when they walk through that door—all while making sure our kids get all of the help they need where they feel safest. Will you help make the path a little easier for our youth by making a gift today?

You can give online here AND if you give before December 31st, 2019, your gift will be doubled by a group of generous donors that have pledged to match donations.

Questions?

Contact Sarah Woodard, Director of Development, at  swoodard@spectrumvt.org or (802) 864-7423 x350

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“I can honestly say that I don’t know where I would be now if it weren’t for Spectrum welcoming me with open arms when no one else would.”

Spectrum youth are some of the most resilient people we’ve ever met. Whether they’re transitioning to adulthood after living in foster care, or pushing to get through school in a foreign language, or trying to overcome a childhood of trauma, they are determined to build a life for themselves.

What they need is someone to help them figure out what their goals are, to offer a friendly ear no matter what, and to let them dream big. And all of that was made possible this year because of our incredible community of donors, volunteers, and mentors. Below is an overview of what was accomplished because of your support. Thank you from all of our hearts, to yours. You can find a PDF version of the annual report here.

Basic Needs & Stable Homes

The Drop-In Center and Supported Housing programs were open for teenagers and young adults who needed a hot meal, clean clothes, a shower, or a place to sleep.

What’s new: A steady stream of federal and state funding cuts in recent years means that more and more, we rely on the generosity of people like you to keep our doors open. In 2018, 33% of the funding for our housing programs came from you, our donors. This year, that percentage rose to 48%, and in 2020, we expect it to be 59%. Thanks to you, we know we’ll be here for the next youth who needs help.

From the left: The Winter Warming Shelter. A group meeting at the Landing (short-term housing). A youth room at the Landing.

260 youth served at the Drop-In Center

33 youth served at the Winter Warming Shelter

50 youth served at the Landing (short-term transitional housing)

37 youth served through the Transitional Housing Program

Life & Survival Skills

This year, teenagers and young adults learned how to find and keep a job, get into and pay for school, budget for an apartment, and other critical life skills.

What’s new: Spectrum’s Multicultural Youth Program set up a Help Desk in the libraries of Burlington and Winooski High Schools to help multicultural youth with anything from tutoring, to driver’s ed, to preparing for life after high school. The Help Desks were staffed with assistance from our partners: the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants and Burlington’s Community Economic Development Office.

From the left: Youth staff at Detail Works, working with head detailer, Jasmine Wood. Yuol Herjok Yuol, Multicultural Youth Program outreach coordinator, speaking with senior Halima Said at Winooski High School’s Help Desk.

160 youth served through the Youth Development Program

112 youth served through Jump on Board for Success

283 youth served through the Multicultural Youth Program

14 youth served through Detail Works

Prevention & Intervention

Every day, teenagers and young adults are working through substance use and mental
health challenges with our therapists, befriending positive adult role models in our mentoring program, and practicing self-care through the health clinic housed in our building.

Spectrum mentors and mentees at ECHO Lake & Aquarium Center’s Community Science Night.

What’s new: In January 2019, the Vermont Department of Children and Families asked us to launch a new program called Compass, which works with youth who are at risk of going into foster care, becoming involved with the justice system, or otherwise facing a crisis. We offer intensive support to both the youth and the family to help them get their lives back on track.

319 youth served through Riverstone Counseling

106 youth served through Mentoring

794 youth served through the Pearl Street Youth Clinic

Thanks to all of the donors, volunteers and mentors that have supported Spectrum youth. It is because of you that they thrive. As one youth recently said,

“I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful for your donation. Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to have a good life, a better life that I want.”

The post A year of “you-are-not-alone” appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Here is a recent letter from Mark Redmond, our executive director, on his experience visiting Detail Works, our social enterprise that teaches youth the soft skills they need to be successful in the workplace.

Last summer I ran into a young woman in our counseling waiting room who works for Detail Works, our social enterprise that teaches youth the soft skills they need to be successful.

Her name was Ariel. I asked how things were going and she said enthusiastically, “I just got promoted! I’ve never been promoted in my whole life!” She was beaming.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by the shop to check in with the youth staff there. These are just a few of the things they told me:

“Without this program I’d be pretty broke. Because I would go to another fast food
restaurant and work there and it would suck.”

“It’s really helping me be able to manage people better. I’m learning different ways to approach people and asking them to do stuff, but in ways that help them meet their needs too.”

And when I asked why customers should bring their cars to us:

“Because we actually try. We care about the car and try to make sure it actually looks nice. I mean we take care of it and we actually make it look a billion times nicer.”

“We put our heart into it. We try our best and we all work together to push out a great product. There’s a lot of love around here.”

If you’d like to give our youth—and your car—a fresh start, you can book an appointment online here. In the meantime, Ariel said it best:

“I’m so grateful for your donation. Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to have a good life, a better life that I want.”

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Happy Valentine’s Day, from all of us at Spectrum. Today and every day, we are so grateful that people like you open your hearts to our youth, to make sure they have a safe place to be, a supportive community, and the help they need to thrive.

Thank you for keeping our youth in your heart.

With love and gratitude,
The Spectrum Team

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With your help, Kayla—once without a home of her own—builds her future.

When she was 8, Kayla went to the police and asked them to put her in foster care.

Her mom had made a habit of leaving her alone for days at a time, with no food and no one to look after her. And when she was home, she regularly beat little Kayla.

“It was almost like a hobby for her,” says Kayla. “I was so scared in that house alone, and when she came home, she was super abusive. It was just awful.”

And, her father was in and out of prison. “My dad is the most kindhearted man in the world. He’s got such a good soul. But he has been an alcoholic since he was a kid.”

She thought that putting herself in state custody would give her parents a wake-up call. “They wouldn’t want me to be in a foster home, so what else would they do besides get it together? You know, stop drinking, stop using drugs, stop leaving me. I just thought it would get better.”

Instead, Kayla bounced from home to home to home—at one, the parents treated her so badly that Kayla’s case manager intervened and they lost their license. Once a star student, she fell behind after switching schools again and again.

Finally, when Kayla was in 8th grade, a room opened up in her aunt’s house, and she became a certified foster parent to take Kayla in—the mother that Kayla had never had. “If I didn’t move in with her, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now. It’s a really scary thought.”

Support to build on, thanks to you.

In high school, Kayla’s case manager referred her to Amanda at our Youth Development Program, which helps youth aging out of state custody transition to adulthood. “I remember the initial meeting, when she told me all the things she could help me with.”

“That was the first time anybody had talked to me about college.”

“I thought, ‘This is my opportunity to branch out and even lead myself.’ My whole time in care had proven that I couldn’t rely on my parents to bounce back and give me a solid life or at least a fair chance at being successful.”

Thanks to your support, Kayla began to plan for college. But in her senior year, her boyfriend of three years suddenly died. In her grief, her grades slipped, she struggled to stay in school, and college seemed like a far-off dream.

She wasn’t sure what to do until Amanda suggested our independent living program, which helps foster kids learn to live on their own. We do many of the things a parent might—like coaching, and helping to pay for books, a computer, or rent.

With your support, a home of her own.

Kayla moved out of her aunt’s house and slowly began to build a life—a home—for herself. She got a job, and eventually started taking classes at Community College of Vermont. Thanks to you, Amanda was always by her side, helping her when her laptop failed in the middle of exams, or covering part of her rent when her hours at work fell through.

“I wasn’t used to that, but it really showed how she saw my priorities as her own. I’ve never really had anywhere else to go. She would do anything she could help me to live independently.”

Next, Kayla transferred to the University of Vermont and got an undergraduate degree in social work. Today, she works for one of the family courts, often witnessing cases that are so similar to her own.

Her dream, if she can find a way to pay for it? To go back to school for public policy, focusing on child welfare. “I can’t see myself doing anything else.”

She also tries to give back to the organizations that helped her. “It’s hard to explain how that extra help pushed me through whatever I was going through. It’s helped me be successful with my goals.”

“You guys were with me for a very long time.”

This article first appeared in the Spring 2017 edition of the Spectrum Sun, a print newsletter. Read the full newsletter here.

The post Finding Home appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Our Executive Director, Mark Redmond, spoke on Friday, February 6th at the TEDx Burlington event.

Mark told a story about how he’d received an email from someone asking, “I am going to be teaching a parenting class at a local school. What advice would you give to a room full of parents?”

His answer also appeared in The Huffington Post.

“The most powerful and important thing a parent can do for a child is to BELIEVE in that child, and to express that . . . When I look back at my life and think of the adults who had the greatest impact on me, it was the adults who believed in me and in what I was capable of, even when I didn’t believe in me.”

As Mark put it, “Parenting is work . . . It’s going to Little League games and dance recitals, not that you have to make every single one, but it’s important for you to be at some.”

He also spoke about the importance of modeling behavior that parents want their children to have, too. “If we want our children to be kind, compassionate, caring, energetic and responsible, we have to model these traits for them. They need to see us live these things out, over and over, consistently. There are no short cuts around that.”

Finally, and most importantly, Mark says, “a parent should tell their child ‘I love you,’ and keep saying that up through adolescence, adulthood and to the end of earthly existence. Don’t presume they know it. They need to hear it. So you should say it.”

Read Mark’s full article here.

The post What Advice Would You Give a Room Full of Parents? appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

“When I came into the [Pearl Street Residence],” Chelsea begins, “I was homeless, I had dropped back out of high school, and I had crashed my car. I was in a really big legal situation—I was facing 15 years in prison. I was at a point where I was like, ‘there is no possible way I’m going to get my life back together after this.’”

She was 18 when she moved in, coming from a few months at a rehab facility. “At first, I was not a big fan,” she says. “I wasn’t a big fan of rules and structure. I had a foster home, but I didn’t follow the rules – I just did whatever I wanted.”

“But you’re expected to hold your own at Spectrum. You’re supposed to do chores, follow rules, and go to all your meetings on time. I had to learn how to be responsible. I had to learn basic life skills over again. They literally helped shape me from the ground up.”

Chelsea had dropped out of high school, so first, staff worked with her on getting back in. “They helped me to get to all my appointments, helped me to do my homework, to do the basic things I just needed to do. And I was able to graduate high school, which I thought I would never ever ever do.”

Because she was formerly in foster care, Chelsea also worked with Spectrum’s Youth Development Program, which supports youth aging out of state custody and transitioning to a life on their own. The YDP staff step in where a parent otherwise might, offering coaching and financial support. In Chelsea’s case, they helped her get into cosmetology school and apply for financial aid, and then helped her pay for the clothing she needed for school.

Staff also helped her address her legal situation. “I thought I was going to lose everything, but everybody was by my side the whole time,” she says. Kandi, her caseworker, went to court and then to trial with her. When she was put on house arrest for six months, she thought her life was over again. But she found Spectrum staff there to help her do everything she needed to do.

“I don’t have much family, I really don’t, and they helped to fill that,” says Chelsea, her eyes filling with tears. “Sorry, I’m getting worked up. They taught me how to live life again.”

Now 20, Chelsea is two years sober, lives on her own, and has a job in a local salon. She still comes to Spectrum for counseling and to check in with Kandi once a week.

“I had to be re-taught everything. The way that I was used to living was a dirty way of living. Stealing and doing drugs and no respect for myself or anybody else. It was just a terrible way to live. I guess I got to a point where I was able to look at the way that I was living my life before and really deep down inside decide that I didn’t want that anymore. I have stuff I want to do with my life and even if I didn’t have that much confidence in myself, there was a little part of me that wanted to someday achieve something. I would not have anything I have now without Spectrum,” she says. “That’s real.”

The post Meet Chelsea appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

On Monday, December 8th, Executive Director Mark Redmond was featured on Comcast Newsmakers. He spoke about what makes Spectrum services unique, the changing needs of the youth we serve, and the upcoming Spectrum Sleep Out in March 2015.

In his words:
“We work with young adults who are struggling … We try and focus on their strengths. We believe that with each young person, there is some strength that we can draw upon, and help them build from there. It’s called positive youth development, and I think that’s what makes us unique.”

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