Outreach staff of the Vancouver Alternate Secondary School spend their days connecting to street kids … on the streets
Some days the staff of the Vancouver Alternate Secondary School will spend their time searching the Downtown Eastside for a student they are concerned about.
They’ll visit hangouts, housing shelters, parks and tent camps.
“They are knocking on doors or literally knocking on tents,” explained Bryce Recsky, the district principal of the school. “They’ll ask for them in shelters, text them, they’ll track them down however they can. And when they finally catch up it’s ‘how are you doing, can we bring you into one of our programs, and get you a hot meal.’
“It’s not ‘we want to get you into school today for some learning.’”
The promise of food is the driver, he said. It’s the best way to make a connection with these students.
“There’s a lot of hardship in Vancouver, a ton of need. Some students have homes but they are not safe there and so for them living in a tent — it’s not a safe space, either — but they feel safer in a tent in public than in their own homes.”
First, school outreach staff are unlikely to get these students to attend one of its 13 high schools in the city. So the team of a teacher and youth worker will take the youth for something to eat and arrange a future meeting at a coffee shop or a recreation centre to begin the process of reintegrating them into school.
“We meet them where they are,” he said.
There are 360 students on the school’s books. The alternate program is designed to help youth who find it difficult to attend regular high school classes. Some have mental health issues, some have addiction to deal with, some are caught up in the youth justice system, some are homeless.
The school wants to hang on to every one and get them to graduate, said Recsky.
“Substance abuse and addiction are a real thing. Some have really hard lives and they cope in ways that society wouldn’t support but it works for that youth in that moment and that’s why our teams come up with strategies that aren’t as harmful to their bodies.
“These are hard conversations to have and the first step is to gain their trust and we are not going to do that by lecturing. It takes a lot of compassion and understanding and a lot of patience to build that connection,” he said.
Food is the essential bridge to these students.
However, there has been a change this year in how provincial funding can be used to deal with hunger outside school. Last year, funding could be used to support out of school food, but not this year.
This has led to a huge spike in requests to The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign for funds to feed students after school and at weekends.
The Alternate Secondary School is asking for $51,300 so it can continue to provide food, clothing and other essentials to its impoverished students now that funding has been removed.
“If a student hasn’t eaten all weekend and they come to school starving, not able to learn, not emotionally regulated, not feeling safe and supported, it’s impossible to have meaningful instruction and engagement,” he said.
Last year, out of 108 students studying for Grade 12, 104 crossed the stage and graduated.
“That was a great success, it was massive. We’ve had students get scholarships, take post-secondary education, go to SFU and UBC.”
Asked if the program ever loses any youth, Recsky said: “Yes, death is a real thing.”
“It’s not just current students, it’s former students, students’ parents, siblings. Numerous deaths. The causes are usually drug overdose, suicide or the result of accidents.
“It’s hard. Our staff do a really great job of putting on a brave face but there’s a lot of pain.
“We will do everything we can to support a student and get them across the finish line and then they pass away a week after graduation.”
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