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z | Page 5 Volume 12 Number 45 | 50¢
November 6, 2013
Filling the gaps in community services The Kamloops Homelessness Action Plan (HAP) and Life Skills Network are proud of the launch of a new workshop series called My Place. This is a result from the collaboration of over 15 local community agencies. Through an extensive community needs assessment involving life skills professionals from over 30 agencies, HAP identified that the key barrier for people experiencing or at-risk of homlessness is the challenge of service navigation. Thus, My Place came about. Hosted by Claire Macleod, the Life Skills coordinator for HAP, the workshops provide food, community information, service referrals and bus tickets. The workshops are free to attend and open to the public. “Nothing has been offered like this in Kamloops before. What makes this program unique is that it is not associated with any agency in particular. We are taking on our own entity, which allows My Place to be free for everyone,” says Claire. “It has been very exciting. We have had a fantastic response; there is an appetite to access this service. The local agencies are certainly seeing a demand for this type of program.” Claire has a background in human resource and has worked as an employment council for income
Claire Macleod is excited to help the people experiencing or are at-risk of homelessness with the My Place program.
assistance. She connected with HAP coordinator Tangie Genshorek and soon learned about the holes in the services offered to the homeless individuals in Kamloops and wanted to help make a difference. “We used focus groups and did a needs assessment to try and get a thorough understanding to try to fill the gap,” says Claire. My Place offers weekly life skills-focused drop-in workshops, which are unique in several ways. “We will be covering different top-
ics such as what it means to be a good tenant/neighbor, communication skills, employment services, parenting advise, accessing local community services, a work search centre and help to familiarize people to navigate through day-to-day life,” adds Claire. The goal of this new program is make life easier for people who need community services. “I forsee our goal as being three-fold,” explains Claire. “One - assist in developing skills in developing and
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maintain housing. Two - support the agencies, to connect to each other and learn about other services in the community and new opportunities happening in the community on the street-level. Three - to help us to help HAP to get a better understanding of what the people’s needs are on the street; what the real gaps are in the community,” comments Claire. “There are lots of services to support people, help for housing, income support, getting a hot meal and day to day supplies. The main challenge is navigating from service to service. Even navigating through transit system. My Place offers a central location to reach the help people need. It is open to anybody. Come out for the full hour and a half, grab a bite to eat, chat with staff and even get a bus ticket to get to your service. We would love for people to come and do that,” says Claire. If you are looking for a place to get a warm meal and some support on how to use local services, don’t hesitate to stop by this North Shore community minded program. The doors of My Place, on 386 Tranquille Road, open at 2:25 on Thursdays and the workshops are hosted from 2:30 to 4:00pm. For more information please call 250-320-7945. Ashley Demedeiros
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