Pictured (Left to Right): Bethany Pombar (Director of VCRHYP) & Ari Kisler (Assistant Director of VCRHYP)
#OneOfMANY: Thoughts On Youth Services From Vermont
As part of our #OneOfMANY series, MANY is traveling all across the country, meeting with member organizations, talking about their programs, and identifying trends and issues that are happening in the youth services field across the country. We had the privilege of sitting down with one of our member organizations to talk more about their unique approach to their runaway homeless youth (RHY) work in Vermont.
Established in 1981, the Vermont Coalition of Runaway & Homeless Youth Programs (VCRHYP) is a coalition of 14 service providers working together to guarantee the existence of a statewide safety net for runaway and homeless youth. VCRHYP is a national service delivery model that ensures access to services for youth throughout the entire state rather than just those in a small number of towns, cities, or locales. Here's what Bethany Pombar, Director of VCRHYP, and Ari Kisler, Assistant Director of VCRHYP, had to say about their work in Vermont:
Q: What are some aspects of your work that you feel are innovative or unique to your work statewide in Vermont?
A: "
VCRHYP offers a unique approach to RHY work. Vermont's motto is "Freedom and Unity" — through the work of the coalition, we achieve both. Our sites have the freedom to serve their communities in the way they know works best with local resources, and we have the unity of our collective impact. Through our work together, we offer a strong voice to examine and promote change with policy makers. We also work hard to grow our own practices through supporting a peer learning culture where youth care workers from each of our agencies have something to give and something to gain from each other. We come together regularly (every month!) to talk about policies and practices, and share experiences and resources. This sense of valuing every voice shows up across our work as we continue to innovate new ways of creating platforms for sharing the importance of our work. Someone once said that change takes 17 inches, the distance between your head and your heart. We travel that distance through allowing youth to share their stories and putting our data into the context of youth lives. We continue to look for creative and unique ways to amplify their voices. From the
High Low project from a few years ago, to our latest project we are about to launch, "
The Vermont Youth Project (#seemeinVT)", we give a bullhorn to young people and learn what is most important to them.
Our main goal at VCRHYP is to ensure supports are in place for the amazing work our direct service providers are doing, and in doing that we enhance outcomes for youth who work with our agencies. Through our coalition, we are able to achieve our mission of creating a statewide safety net for youth.
See our newest site snapshot, "Going into the grey": http://vcrhyp.org/site-snapshots.html"
