Talk to Youth Lately (Lookup Theatre)
Greater Toronto Area
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Through the Great Big Stories (GBS) Program, Frayme is providing grants of up to $15,000 to support a range of diverse organizations from across Canada to capture and share their stories of success. The grant will highlight initiatives and programs that are increasing inclusion, collaboration and equity across diverse social, cultural and geographical contexts.
The application and review process for the program is now complete. We received amazing submissions from a wide range of organizations and partnerships across Canada, all of which were carefully reviewed by a diverse group of youth, family and subject matter experts. The selected recipients will share stories about how their programs use creative approaches to meaningfully engage youth and families, and promote inclusion and equity.
Frayme is thrilled to announce the recipients of the GBS Grants and to help them tell their great big stories.
MEET OUR 10 GRANT RECIPIENT ORGANIZATIONS:
Talk to Youth Lately (Lookup Theatre)
Greater Toronto Area
Project lead:
Angola Murdoch angolamurdoch@gmail.com
Website: www.lookuptheatre.com
In the fall of 2010, Lookup Theatre created a social circus program for youth ages 16 to 30 who have lived mental health experience. Since then, the youth have created over 6 full length shows, performed for over 25 000 people, and spread their anti-stigma in mental health messages through contemporary circus arts. For the Great Big Stories project, participants will express their experiences in the program and how it has impacted their lives. They will also create short circus pieces about what the program means to them.
Kickstand
Alberta
Project leads:
Nancy Zhao nancy.zhao@mykickstand.ca
Alexandra San Diego alexandra.sandiego@mykickstand.ca
Website: www.mykickstand.ca
Kickstand will be creating a video to elevate the story of how we engaged young people and families/caregivers in Alberta for the development of our brand and interactive website. Our vision is to share the comprehensive engagement process we embarked on and how the engagement has positively impacted the wellbeing of the young people and families/caregivers who participated. To create the video, we plan to recruit and hire young creatives in Alberta who want to develop and showcase their skills in videography, storyboarding, digital art, and more.
Roots to Harvest
Thunder Bay
Project lead:
Erin Beagle erin@rootstoharvest.org
Website: www.rootstoharvest.org
Roots to Harvest has always found intersections between using food as a tool to build relationships with youth who have experienced or are experiencing mental health and other challenges that make the day to day for them hard to navigate at times. From experiences through and with Roots to Harvest, we will explore the ways participants experience achievement or growth, how they feel supported, what was challenging and hard, what it meant to them to be a part of those programs.
Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) and Alberta Health Services (AHS)
Alberta
Project leads:
Jill Fairbank JFairbank@ccsa.ca
Faria Khan faria.khan@ahs.ca
Websites: www.ccsa.ca, www.ahs.ca
Young people in Alberta impacted by opioid use have identified a need for “stories of hope” from the real experiences of other youth. The path of recovery and wellness is different for everyone. Some treatments work for some and not for others. These videos are designed to bring more awareness to the opioid crisis impacting youth in Alberta and to reduce stigma around opioid use. This initiative is part of the Improving Treatment Together project, a partnership between the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction and Alberta Health Services in Alberta to improve opioid-use related services for youth and young adults, family/caregivers, and health care providers.
Adoption Council of Ontario: Never Too Late
Ontario
Project lead:
Aviva Zukerman Schure aviva.zukerman@adoptontario.ca
Website: adoption.on.ca
The “Never Too Late” program (NTL) promotes and facilitates permanency for youth who have aged out of the Child Welfare System. The project will be led by a team of young people, all of whom are first voice experts of growing up within the Child Welfare system and will reflect upon the idea of the costs and benefits of using first voice storytelling as a way to educate, build community, and advocate for change. We will bring together participants and listeners of the 2020 podcast #14Stories, which shared stories about the early days of the pandemic from youth in and from care, in order to:
- explore lessons learned about the impacts of sharing stories to create awareness;
- create the safest spaces/processes for both the sharing of personal stories and for those who are listening who may share similar experiences.
YWCA Hamilton: Speqtrum Storytelling Project
Hamilton
Project lead:
Anuja Varghese AVarghese@ywcahamilton.org
Jyssika Russell jyssika@speqtrum.ca
Website: www.speqtrum.ca
Operating under the umbrella of YWCA Hamilton, Speqtrum is a youth-led collective offering consistent, relevant programming and community building for 2SLGBTQIA youth aged 17 to 29. With a GBS grant from Frayme, the Speqtrum Storytelling Project will: 1) Collect evidence/participant experiences demonstrating program impact and the need for stable program funding; and 2) Share stories across platforms of the meaningful, often life-saving work that Speqtrum is doing, especially during the pandemic, to better reflect what we do and who we serve, thereby increasing program reach and replicability.
Northern Lights School Division: Indigenous Spirits
Northern Saskatchewan
Project lead:
Shane Bird shanebird@nlsd113.ca
Website: www.nlsd113.ca
Indigenous Spirits is represented and directed by youth (within the Tri-Community of La Ronge, Air Ronge, and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band Reserves; Sucker River, Hall Lake, Sikichew, Stanley Mission, Grandmothers Bay, Little Red, Kitsaki) who believe in promoting cultural awareness and positive lifestyle choices that reflect Cree spiritual values. This philosophy empowers our youth with knowledge of their Traditions, Culture and Language, leading to social change and a balanced well-being.
In this project we will share success stories from the Indigenous Spirits Youth Group, showcasing reconciliation, mental health awareness and the breaking of intergenerational cycles. These stories will be shared through a music video and a five-to-ten-minute documentary. These two projects will engage audiences of all ages, aiming to inspire the viewers in reclaiming lost identities, traditional teachings, and cultural knowledge, and supporting collective community growth, personal development, positive lifestyle choices and a balanced well-being.
Adoption Council of Canada/ Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
University of Toronto
Documenting Youth Speak Out Storytellers (Youth S.O.S.) .
Project leads:
Allison Crawford allison.crawford@camh.ca
Chantalle Clarkin Chantalle.Clarkin@camh.ca
Cathy Murphy
Website: www.adoption.ca
Approximately 30,000 children and youth are currently in the Canadian child welfare system. We travelled to 11 communities across Canada, from 2018 to 2021, to conduct two projects with youth in and from care: “Youth Speak Out Storytellers,” and “Aging Out Without a Safety Net.” With this grant are inspired to co-create a youth-partnered documentary short that tells the story of the journeys undertaken through both of these projects– journeys that crossed the country, forged connections through digital storytelling workshops, and engaged youth who too often do not have the platform they deserve. We will showcase their digital stories, which inspire both compassion and action, and tell the story of how youth wholeheartedly took on these projects to make change.
Muse Arts: Visual Poetry
Greater Toronto Area
Project Leads:
Paola Gomez community@musearts.ca
Veronica Gomez veronica@musearts.ca
Website: www.musearts.ca
Muse Arts will use a Visual Poetry approach to create a series of in-person and virtual photography workshops for youth living in Transitional Housing, Shelter and Refugee Reception Centres in Toronto. This project will offer participants tools to explore portrait, street-urban, and landscape photography while drawing connections between participants' daily realities in their personal, inter-relational and social spaces. Using a hands-on/experiential approach, youth engage in knowledge sharing processes (Mentorship) with facilitators/instructors (Artists), who also have lived experiences of migration and/or homelessness. Through the creation of space, we have witnessed the positive impact on this project, especially on those involved, confirming our belief that the arts are transformative and a powerful life-strategy for self-expression.
Le Lab: Centre d’intervention et de prévention en toxicomanie de l'Outaouais (CIPTO)
Quebec
Project Leads:
Etienne Proulx etienne.proulx@gmail.com
Sara Lambert slamb034@uottawa.ca
Marie-Eve Parent coordolab@outlook.com
Website: www.cipto.qc.ca/le-lab/
LAB is a CIPTO (Outaouais center for drug addiction intervention and prevention) initiative that promotes expression and artistic creation by making the arts accessible to all. It specifically targets youth and others who are at risk of, or experiencing, problems related to the consumption of psychoactive substances, mental health, homelessness and social exclusion. Our intervention through the arts program provides opportunities for validation and empowerment that allow participants to express themselves in a different way, develop their creative potential and use their artistic talents.
Objectives of the Frayme Great Big Stories Grant Program
What’s the purpose of the grants?
The purpose of the granting program is to help organizations capture and promote work being done to encourage equity and include youth/families in creating, designing, and/or refining YMSHU programs and services. The end goal of the grant is to encourage and equip organizations within Frayme’s network to learn from the great work being done and/or scale-up similar programs or initiatives.
How does this grant relate to Frayme’s values?
As an organization, Frayme values reciprocity, equity and meaningful engagement. We are vested in working with organizations to help achieve mutual and sustained benefits. We also focus on ensuring that all persons have an equal chance to be represented, engaged, and heard across all our work and activities, especially those who have been underserved or under-represented. For these reasons (and more), Frayme wants to help support community organizations and initiatives to share their stories about initiatives or unique partnerships that resulted in increasing inclusivity, diversity and equity that have meaningfully engaged youth and families in program design and delivery.
Quotes
“Significant disparities exist when it comes to equitable, impactful and inclusive services and programs in the youth mental health and substance use sector,” said Shauna MacEachern, Executive Director, Frayme. “The Great Big Stories Grant Program is an opportunity for Frayme to recognize meaningful engagement of youth and family members within the system and help amplify stories about programs that recognize and serve diverse audiences and equity-seeking youth populations. These are voices and stories that need to be heard loud and clear in our system, and Frayme is proud to play a part in helping make that possible.”
In partnership with
This was made possible thanks to the financial support of Health Canada.
