Conferences & Training Centre“My name is Trevor and my position with Marymound is Youth Care Worker. I work in the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) at Scotia Street. I’ve been with Marymound 11 years in September.
In the crisis unit, we have youth that come all the time. They usually stay about three to five days, so your roles often quite changes. Sometimes you’re there to hang out with the youth, sometimes you’re kind of a counselor, sometimes you’re a life coach.
Referrals come to CSU through the Mobile Crisis Team that is run by The Link. It’s a team of two people that go to the community and they’ll interview the youth, talk to their parents or guardians.
A typical week would be going from watching Netflix and doing arts and crafts, and on the weekends we cook. I love to cook on weekends. We have a sensory room that the kids can use. It has fidget toys and some sensory items like essential oils and yoga mats.
Every day is different. With this unit, I love the constant change. It’s like every day is a new day. My supervisor is phenomenal. We were a staff team that have been together for a while so we were very cohesive so that’s always good.
I think we need more beds to be honest. Especially with the pandemic happening. Mental health has kind of flown under the radar. We don’t have many services. We have the hospital and then we have these beds in the province. It’s good when you have this tool for youth to kind of get over everyday stressors from school or online bullying. We’ve been getting a lot of kids from the LGBTQ2S+ community. This unit is needed. It’s kind of a break from the norm.
I grew up in this area, so Marymound to me was where they would send the bad kids. When I came here, it was very eye-opening to what Marymound has done for the community. I want to get rid of this negative stigma that we have. I think people should know these resources are there for the youth.”