“The vast majority of the youth that we serve are “transition-aged,” people who are considered adults by the law but whose challenges are unique to their age range. While “transition-aged” is defined as youth between the ages of 16-24, I’d like to speak today about the core of that range, people aged 18-22.

Most of these young people live at the intersection of a range of marginalized identities: they are teenagers, they are experiencing homelessness, they have mental health and substance abuse problems. They are disproportionately people of color or those who identify as LGBTQ+. They might be disabled or scraping by on benefits.

In our day-to-day work we see first-hand how marginalized these youth feel in their community: they aren’t considered for jobs they’re qualified for, they’re seen as a nuisance in public, they’re targeted by police as “troublemakers,” and they’re questioned over their presumed lack of motivation to “better themselves.” It’s our job to help them navigate these systems and create safe spaces for them to grow outside the glare of the public eye.

In my experience and that of my colleagues, this dynamic stands out in particular when transition-aged youth seek care in crisis situations. Specifically, I’d like to speak to some of my experiences with these youth when they’ve tried to access intensive mental health services in our community.

Last year I accompanied a young transgender woman to the hospital. We often offer this kind of advocacy and support role for folks in severe crises. For weeks this youth had been coming to our Drop-In Center reporting increasingly frequent episodes of paranoia and psychosis, accompanied by intensifying thoughts of suicide. As her crisis deepened, we made as many referrals as we could to mental health supports like counseling, medical care, advocates for survivors.

Nothing took. And then she came to Drop-In with obvious physical marks of the last night’s suicide attempt, and an insistence that it was a matter of time before she followed through with her suicide. Yes, she had a plan. Yes, we were both terrified.

At the hospital she was told in plain language that her reported mental health symptoms could not be true given the way she presented in that moment. She was told that her recent attempt must not have been particularly serious, and that her plan to kill herself did not merit further medical attention. She was discharged after about an hour with no discernable plan of care or follow-up.

I don’t doubt that this kind of invalidation added a new layer of trauma to her experience, and that she might be less likely to seek medical care when in a future crisis because of it. Despite her traumas, she saved herself. Somehow – amazingly – she traveled by herself to a different state, got herself admitted into an inpatient facility at a hospital, and stayed there for over a month. She was ultimately discharged and admitted into a stabilization clinic in Vermont before moving into a residential mental health program. 

And I will offer another brief anecdote. About when a 19-year-old, also transgender, reported to us that she was abducted for days and repeatedly assaulted before running away and making it back to the Drop-In Center. She went to the hospital, where she was seen by intake staff before getting overwhelmed and returning to Drop-In. When I went back to the hospital to support and advocate for her, she was scolded, told that she’d wasted hospital staff’s time by leaving, and that she’d have to wait longer because she left. It felt like a punishment. The forensic nurse who examined her was kind, but the damage was already done at the admission-level. She angrily refused most services and said that, if there were a next time, she’d skip the hospital altogether.

It’s really important to me that everyone here understands: I’m telling these stories not to condemn the hospital, any local clinicians, or any mental health providers who are doing an incredibly difficult job with limited resources, especially now. I understand that they have to make seemingly impossible choices, and I’m grateful for the effective care they’ve given to other Spectrum clients. I tell these stories only to show what my colleagues and I are seeing on the ground: transition-aged youth, particularly the most vulnerable, are met with skepticism and eye-rolls when they seek help in a crisis.

So, why is that?

Why are the transition-aged youth that we serve, who are among the most vulnerable folks in our society, treated like the lowest priorities in their times of need? In my opinion, the reasons that our youth aren’t taken seriously in these situations are the exact same reasons that they should be taken most seriously.  

It isn’t a secret that the trauma of youth homelessness takes a toll on people’s mental health. According to a 2019 study published by researchers at the University of Southern California, 12 percent of adolescents in the United States have considered suicide, while 4 percent have attempted suicide. For youth experiencing homelessness, the study shows that 46 percent of those surveyed had attempted suicide, and that 78 percent of those who had previously attempted would continue to make attempts.

That is for youth homelessness. What happens when you add more layers of marginalization? For example, UCLA cites the 2015 Transgender Study as reporting that more than 80 percent of transgender people have seriously considered suicide in their lifetimes, and that over 40 percent make at least one attempt. These rates are so much higher than those of the general population, it’s hard to fathom.

And to put these two populations together, again consider that youth homelessness disproportionately affects people who identify as LGBTQ+, as well as people of color. We at Spectrum see these trends on the ground.

What I’m getting at is – as far as I’ve seen in this work – the more traumatized you are, the more marginalized you are, the more likely you are to be turned away in your hour of need. And I think that the opposite should be true.

So how do we start to address this trend?

To start, I think we should go back to the basics. The practice of Trauma-Informed Care is widely embraced as a baseline tool to help client-facing staff approach people in crisis with knowledge and compassion.

It’s rooted in a classic maxim in social work: do no harm. To quote from an article on the practice published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, also known as SAMHSA: “Trauma-Informed Care begins with the first contact a person has with an agency; it requires all staff members (e.g., receptionists, intake personnel, direct care staff, supervisors, administrators, peer supports, board members) to recognize that the individual’s experience of trauma can greatly influence his or her receptivity to and engagement with services, interactions with staff and clients, and responsiveness to program guidelines, practices, and interventions. Trauma-Informed Care includes program policies, procedures, and practices to protect the vulnerabilities of those who have experienced trauma and those who provide trauma-related services.” 

Put simply, it’s a good way of treating people with dignity and understanding when they’re at their worst. So no doubt, Trauma-Informed Care is a really helpful tool to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. But maybe we need other tools, too. 

We at Spectrum have recently been told two different things: that there are more than enough beds in the state for psychiatric patients of all ages, and then that there are not.  We’re not sure who to believe. But no matter who’s right, we do know that young people in psychiatric distress are turned away at alarming rates.

So what’s happening? What’s the disconnect? If the capacity does exist, why and how is the criteria for admission failing transition-aged youth? And whether the question is capacity or criteria, I think that we should start a conversation about diverting resources toward creating clinical programs that cater specifically to the needs of transition-aged youth. 

Why specifically, transition-aged youth?

For one, beyond the trends I’ve just mentioned, countless studies have confirmed that the human brain continues to develop and mature for years into true adulthood. It’s uniquely sensitive and fragile in this growth period.

It’s also widely accepted that youth trauma and homelessness can lead to long-term mental health problems and chronic homelessness in adulthood. Instead of accepting that as an inevitability, what if we set aside resources to meet the needs of this unique population, one whose future has proven to have a profound effect on all of our social and economic futures?

If we can take lessons from this pandemic – like diverting resources upstream, like focusing on prevention and mitigation before the current becomes chronic – then maybe we can start to make lasting change.

Let’s have a conversation.“

The post Are Vermont’s Institutions Failing Transition-Aged Youth? appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

I’m guessing you already know the kinds of services Spectrum has to offer and I’m also guessing you have some assumptions about the individuals Spectrum works with.
Before I accessed Spectrum services, I assumed every person was homeless because they were in foster care or in some other type of unfortunate living situation. Boy was I wrong.

Every individual who utilizes these services is as one-of-a-kind as the circumstances that brought them there. I am no exception. Three years later, I still find a knot in my stomach and a little water in my eyes when I think about the events leading up to moving into the Landing, Spectrum’s emergency shelter.

However, when I think about how far I have come and everything I have accomplished, I am amazed and overflowing with gratitude. Four years ago, I was on top of the world after being accepted and awarded presidential scholarships at all of the colleges I applied to. I was graduating magna cum laude, I couldn’t wait to get out of the seemingly small and mundane town of Burlington, and I was ready to take on the world to make a change. What I didn’t know was that I would return less than a semester later and make my impact here.

It’s still too painful for me to delve into specifics about my return, but it happened at the end of 2015. For many months after being back in Burlington, I somehow carried on with life. I smiled, I made commitments, and I packed up the house I had lived in for 15 years and watched it start its own new adventure with its new inhabitants. Despite all this sadness that was weighing me down, I continued to smile, and have summer adventures and just take life day by day. Except I’m a planner and spontaneity was not, and still isn’t, my forte. So, summer 2016 can basically be titled “The Summer of Pretending.”

Like most things in life, I found that the pretending was manageable until it wasn’t. By the end of the summer I found myself falling down the all-too-familiar rabbit hole of depression, anxiety, and more.

I managed to pull myself out of the rabbit hole with assistance from inpatient psychiatry at UVMMC and, when I was ready to be in the world again, I came to the Landing.

Without a job or school, I spent my days at the Drop-In Center and what I realized after about ten minutes of being there was that I was not ready to be in the real world. I was still seriously depressed and anxious and, for lack of better terminology, a “hot mess”. I might have been out of the rabbit hole but I wasn’t ready to wander away from it.

Fast-forward two years and here I am. I have now been living on my own for nearly four months. I also just took a midterm for one of the two classes I am taking at CCV. Neither of these things would be happening if I hadn’t found people to encourage me to wander a little farther from the rabbit hole every day. And I definitely wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had Spectrum help me understand the importance of building and maintaining healthy connections with positive peers in my community.

I still don’t have a job and I am still a hot mess, but I have something that I didn’t have when I first came to Spectrum. I have a wonderful community of people who support me with pretty much anything and everything, and I have an endless amount of gratitude for the work that they do and the people who support them. I have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of what being successful in life means, and I have a clearer idea of who I am and who I want to be.

I don’t know what I would be doing these days if I hadn’t stumbled into Spectrum when I did, but I know I am so glad I did. And I’m really glad it wasn’t easy because now I know what I stand for and what I value. Today, I am standing here because of Spectrum, and Spectrum is here because of people like you who show support—whether it’s making meals, making monetary donations, or being crazy enough to sleep outside in March. So, from the bottom of my heart to yours, thank you!

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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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At our winter warming shelter for youth facing homelessness, the University of Vermont Medical Center and the Community Health Centers of Burlington have donated bedding and cots.

This winter, the Burlington Free Press and Vermont Catholic Magazine have shared the story of our winter warming shelter for youth facing homelessness, which opened in November in the Parish Hall of the Co-Cathedral of Saint Joseph.

The shelter opened this winter funded entirely by private donations, including from the Hoehl Family Foundation and the Argosy Foundation.

As Will Towne, our supported housing supervisor, put it, “We’ve been full pretty much every single night, which is great, the word is getting out, but it also goes to show that there’s a need for increased services.

“I probably don’t need to tell you how hard it was to turn people away last winter. The basic need of having a roof over your head is the most important thing, in order to get other parts of your life back together,” he added.

Writing in Vermont Catholic Magazine, Cory Fugere Urban shared this quote from Father Lance Harlow, rector of the co-cathedral and Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception parishes: “Each of us is committed to serving the homeless population during the cold Vermont winters, and I am hoping that our first year in partnership will help to save the lives of young adults who would otherwise find themselves in jeopardy.”

Thank you to our community of supporters for coming together to help our youth stay out of the cold this winter.

Read the Vermont Catholic Magazine article here.

Read the Burlington Free Press coverage here.

The post A place out of the cold for youth facing homelessness. appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Our friends at Dealer.Com partnered with the incredible Lux Barber Shop to offer free haircuts for our youth.

Getting a haircut is often out-of-reach for youth experiencing homelessness, and this partnership to receive a professional haircut, for free, was an incredible gift.

Thank you!

Read more about the day in this article, published by Burlington Free Press.

Special thanks to Kate Vetter, Dealer.Com’s corporate social responsibility project coordinator, for organizing, and to Megan and Steve Incerto and the rest of the staff at Lux Barber Shop for donating your time and talents to make a difference.

The post How a haircut makes a big difference. appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

We wanted to let you know that our winter warming shelter for youth opened its doors for the first time this week. And it’s funded entirely by people like you.

The beds in our residences and longer-term shelter, The Landing, were full all last winter, and they’re full now. And, like last year, all of the other shelters in the area are full, too.

As Will, our supportive housing manager, put it: “I probably don’t need to tell you how hard it was to turn youth away last winter.”

But this year, thanks to generous supporters like you, we will have ten more beds during our coldest months, from November through the end of March.

Here’s a message from one of our young people: “Thank you very much. Y’all are literally saving lives. I would be dead if it weren’t for Spectrum. Thank you for keeping low-income youth alive.“

If you or someone you know (ages 18-24) needs housing this winter, call us at (802) 864-7423 x325, or, after 5 PM, (802) 324-2934.

The post Open for the winter. appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

From left, Donna Aiken, Ray Racine, Keith Flaherty, Dylan Kerkes, Dan Maxwell, and Annette Delphia, of Hallam-ICS.

This is a guest blog post written by Ray Racine, Senior Control Systems Engineer at Hallam-ICS. It was first published on their blog.

On Thursday, March 23, six of our Hallam-ICS crew slept out for Spectrum. Donna Aiken, Annette Delphia, Dylan Kerkes, Keith Flaherty, Dan Maxwell and myself “braved the elements” for this great cause. Wednesday night got down to about 5 degrees (F); so 25 degrees on Thursday night was a blessing indeed.

Spectrum is a local organization focused on helping homeless teens and young adults. From a safe place to sleep, to counseling, to basic medical care; this fantastic group is dedicated to helping youth turn troubled lives around and grow into healthy, independent adults.

It is sobering to consider that in a small place like Vermont, this group serves over 2,000 young adults a year in the Burlington area. That’s 2,000 kids in really bad situations that Spectrum helps.

This was year six for their Sleep Out, which is one of their major fundraisers. The event raised over $347,000. Our team members were able to raise just over $7,000, which Hallam-ICS matched. That made our contribution over $14,000.

Executive Director Mark Redmond rallies the crowd.

So how does the Sleep Out work? We arrived at the rally point around 9PM. Pizza, soda, and coffee were served by local businesses. (Coffee, are you kidding me? I don’t want to have to get out of my sleeping bag until morning.) Mark, the director of Spectrum, gave a great pep talk. Everybody introduced themselves and their group affiliation. Then, one of the young people that has recently stepped into good, full-time, work—after a rough patch—gave her personal story of Spectrum. Really reminded everybody why they were there. Then, off to the outdoors.

We had a couple of feet of snow recently; so our sleeping area was nice and crunchy. Vermont Tent set up two big canopies (tents with no sides) and laid tarps on the ground. Everyone spread out to stake their spot. Cardboard as a ground mat provided insulation from the ice beneath the big tarps.

Under the tents, we bedded down for the night.

How did we sleep? Funny you should ask.

I run pretty warm; so I did not suffer from the cold—that was, until I rolled off of my matt and started melting ice. But, between the symphony of snoring, the crunching of ice underfoot, and the hourly ringing of the church bells, sleep was scarce. However cheer was in great abundance.

Thanks to the team, the employee-owners of Hallam-ICS, & our sponsors for helping to make this event so successful!

The post Sleep Out for a Cause appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

The City of Burlington team sleeps out in 2016. Clockwise from top right: John St. Amour, Neale Lunderville, Mike Kanarick, and Val DeBrita.

John St. Amour, who’s sleeping out for his second year with the City of Burlington, shared his story about why he’s sleeping out, and we wanted to share it with you. On March 23rd, community and business leaders are sleeping out for one night in solidarity with youth who are homeless in the Spectrum Sleep Out. That same weekend, hundreds of students will do the same.

I chose to participate in my first Sleep Out in 2016. I have a family member who had used Spectrum’s services, and while they chose to not be successful, I wanted to give back for the kids in our community that really could benefit.

I had no idea what to expect, since I had never “camped” in winter before. I went home and shared my involvement with my wife and my children (4 & 6) at the time. My kids did not understand why Daddy was going to sleep outside on the ground, instead of a warm bed.

I explained to them that many people locally do not have the comforts we do, and it was time to give back. I also said that if something ever happens, and one of them needs support, I want to make sure Spectrum exists and can be there for them.

I am participating again this year for this simple reason: the kids on the street need our support and they need our voices. I will survive the night out, I will go to work Friday, then go back home to my loving family, and a warm house and bed. Someday, I hope my efforts—OUR efforts—can make the reality that we live in the same for others who are less fortunate.

Believe me when I tell you this: the Sleep Out is so much more than sleeping outside in a sleeping bag on some cardboard with a canopy overhead. Come join our efforts and learn how you can make a difference!

Register for the Sleep Out by February 28th and you’re entered to win an iPad Air 2 from Small Dog Electronics!

Mike, Val, John, and Neale at the 2016 Sleep Out, ready to head outside for the night.

The post “Why I sleep out?” appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

From our ED, Mark . . .

I wanted you to see this video—it’s fun to watch and does a good job explaining the impact you have on our youth.

I’d love to know what you think. Let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for keeping our doors open,

Mark Redmond
Executive Director

The post The Doors You Keep Open appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

This is a letter from Mark, our Executive Director.

The snow has fallen and the darkness comes early each night. Young people who are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless need us more than ever—this winter, and into the future.

The good news is, you can help! Join us in sleeping outside overnight in solidarity with our youth while raising funds to support them, and you can make sure teens and young adults have a place to go when the wind starts to bite.

The Executive Sleep Out will be Thursday, March 23rd, and the Student Sleep Out is March 23rd-26th.

Can you stand in solidarity with our youth and sleep out this year? Register now and let our youth know you’ve got their back.

With gratitude,

Mark Redmond
Executive Director

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