Weechi-it-te-win Family Services opens youth housing

By Allan Bradbury
Staff Writer
abradbury@fortfrances.com

On Tuesday, Apr. 12 Weechi-it-te-win Family Services (WFS) opened a home in Fort Frances that will host youth who are learning to live semi-independently in hopes of helping them transition smoothly into adulthood.

Nizigos Nimishomeh Endaad or, Aunties and Uncles House will provide young people aged 17-20 with a safe, stable environment to develop good study habits, cooking and cleaning skills, job searching and budgeting, with the goal to be able to ultimately move out and live independently.

WFS says this is a “One-of-a-kind program that we are launching to help support our youth in transition to adulthood and based on our Anishinaabe culture, traditions and teachings.”

WFS is an alternative to government-led family services that works with 10 different First Nations in the Kenora and Rainy River districts. The home is for youth that are already in the care of WFS.

In the home the young people will live mostly on their own but also have a live-in caregiver who will help them with learning the skills they will need to live on their own as adults.

Housing Support Co-ordinator for WFS Sierra Cousineau says the program has eligibility criteria that youth have to fit to join the program.

“There are certain requirements for eligibility,” she said. “They either have to be in care or under CCSY (Continued Care and Support for Youth). They have to be wanting to move on and make that transition from a youth to a young adult. They either have to be working or going to school or planning to go to school in the fall.”

The young people in the home will have to pay rent and buy their own groceries.

The house is a building that WFS has had for a while and used for different purposes. They made some updates for the new program.

The caregiver will have their own suite in the downstairs of the home and the youth will have their own rooms with shared living and kitchen spaces. There is also space for additional workers to stay when they take over for the live-in caregiver to give them time off. Cousineau says they did some basic updates to the house knowing people would be living there full time.

“We got new furniture, we refinished the youth bedrooms as well as the main bathroom,” Cousineau said. “We just tried to freshen things up now that there’s going to be people living here full time.”

The main living area has new couches, a TV with game consoles as well as musical instruments like a guitar and piano and some exercise space that has things like yoga mats.

The residents will have the option to personalize their bedrooms with how they arrange furniture and things like that.

Cousineau says the program arose from what they saw was a gap in the system.

“I think there was just a huge gap in the transition of youth in care,” Cousineau said. “Coming from that age of 16, 17, 18 or even 19 and 20, coming from care into being a young adult and maybe not having the skills to quite leave yet. So this semi-independent home is hoping that they can step away and start gaining those skills. When living here they have to pay rent, they have to buy groceries. They have some responsibility but there’s also a live-in caregiver and there’s some guidance and there will be programming with our youth and transition worker to teach them some skills like sewing, cooking, financial literacy, laundry, budgeting, anything like that.”

WFS works to help youth who are in care transition back to their families.

“We’re really rooted in culture,” Cousineau said.

The open house started with a traditional opening ceremony with smudging, and tobacco.

Those interested in the program can get in contact with WFS. They only have one home available at this time with two rooms in the home for youth. They are hoping to have the young people there for about a year so if the program takes off there may be a waiting list. But Cousineau will meet with anyone applying to see if the program is a good fit for them.

“I sit with the youth and ask them some more in-depth questions,” Cousineau said of the process. “Why do they want to be in the home? What do they want to work on? Based on that interview we’ll decide whether they get into the home.”