Jeff Day with club member Jim Pedde
This week we welcomed Jeff Day, a member of the leadership team from Inner City High School and Youth Engagement Program. Jeff told us that the Inner City Youth Development Association (ICYDA) was started in 1986 by Dr. Joe Cloutier as a means to help poor inner city youth with their basic needs in the hope that they would be better able to focus on their schooling. Joe started working with street engaged youth who had no stability in their lives and most did not have access to any specific school. To address this problem, in 1993 he started the Inner City High School which ran in the Boyle Street Community League building. In 1994 they moved to their present location near the Royal Alex and are an Alberta Education accredited High School. They serve inner city youth aged fifteen to nineteen and provide wrap around supports such as food, with a hot lunch and after school snack, counselling and help with medical, legal and housing issues to help them to be able to complete their schooling. They provide housing referrals, help with court proceedings, provide medical support, addiction services and suicide prevention services. They try to provide these youth with the tools, resources and attitudes to help stabilize their lives.
Many have come to the city from elsewhere and have no stable place to stay or steady means of support. Most test at an elementary school level of education and have attended anywhere between ten and twenty-seven different schools in their lives. Of the ‘street’ youth they serve, some live in group homes, many live in unstable/unsafe housing and some are totally homeless. Most of their young people come from indigenous backgrounds. The school and it’s staff are the one stable thing in their lives.
Jeff told us that in an average year they have between one hundred and eighty and three hundred students go through their program. The programming they provide is specially tailored to the needs of these young people, with all of the community supports woven into the program. The school has thirty three staff members, half of whom are teachers and half support staff. They also have an Elder on site to help students who want to learn more about their culture. He said that the cost of their program is about twenty-one thousand dollars per student per year and they do receive government funding towards some of this cost. The government only covers three years of schooling and many of their students need more than three years to complete their schooling. They also provide a twice weekly food bank, daily meals and transportation to school for their students which are not covered by government funding. All of these extra items are supported by donations.
We would like to thank Jeff for taking the time to come and tell us about this very deserving local program.