Photo program reaches out to street youth

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A picture is worth a thousand words, and in the case of an Aboriginal street youth, a picture is worth even more when it provides an outlet for his feelings and connects him with resources that can help him make it through another day.

On Oct. 5 the Kla how eya Aboriginal Centre in Surrey, in collaboration with the Adolescent Crisis Response Program of Fraser Health, held an exhibition of photographic art produced by Aboriginal street youth involved with Kla how eya.

The exhibit was a display of the work done in a photo-therapy program held this summer in which the young people were asked to express themselves through photography.

The program took place at Bindiigan Place, Kla how eya's homeless youth drop-in centre. A total of 15 street youth participated, with four to eight youth in each group. The groups met every Monday throughout the summer to receive their photo assignments. The assignments were to take pictures based on specific themes. Some of the weekly themes included coping with stress, healthy relationships and self-care.

"I think that the photo exhibition [was] a wonderful way to reinforce their learning and celebrate their achievements," said Jennifer Mervyn, the photo-therapy program director.

The Aboriginal street youth population in Surrey is a small, but very visible group that needs more attention, said Moe Velji, senior clinician with the Adolescent Crisis Response Program. The program deals with youth that are exhibiting signs of mental illness and are referred by social workers.

"One of the areas that we identified that we didn't think we were servicing as well as we could was the First Nations' population and street youth," said Velji.

The Adolescent Crisis Response Program sees about 800 youth in a year. Of that number, three per cent are Aboriginal, said Velji. Youth are admitted to the outpatient program based on a psychological assessment, and are generally referred by organizations such as Kla how eya that work with street youth.

The goal of the photo-therapy program was to help at-risk street youth and make them more aware that support was available to them.

"At the exhibition a lot of the kids had written captions of what they were thinking when they took the picture, which is really interesting because it was real-life personal stories," said Velji.

The photo-therapy program, and especially the exhibition, was a very good way to get the youth to speak about what they were thinking about, said Velji.

Shannon Courchene, the manager of family development at Kla how eya, said the photo-therapy program was a good way to get youth to express themselves.

"It was a great experience for the kids. A lot of the kids did very good work," said Courchene.

She said there was a lot of emotion expressed in the youths' photos, something that was not lost on those that viewed them.

"Some of them were actually sold," she said.

Aboriginal street youth are generally young people who have been shuffled around the health care system for most of their lives.

Between 20 and 30 per cent of them are in need of mental health care, Courchene said.