New home for youth agency

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2016 (2917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the city’s largest youth-services agencies is getting a new home.

Macdonald Youth Services (MYS), which has been providing support services to at-risk children, youth and their families since 1929, officially breaks ground today on a new $7.5-million, 33,000-square-foot therapeutic centre on Mayfair Avenue west of Queen Elizabeth Way.

Three buildings MYS owned on the street — an administration building, a small cottage and a large red-brick home — have already been demolished to make room for the new three-storey facility. A fourth building — the big, green heritage home at 159 Mayfair — has been extensively upgraded and will continue to serve as the agency’s emergency shelter.

When the new therapeutic centre opens next June, it will mark the first time since the early 1990s MYS has had most of its Winnipeg employees and operations under one roof. They currently operate out of six different locations, and MYS chief executive officer Erma Chapman said reducing that number to one will not only significantly reduce operating costs but will enable the agency to deliver its services in a more efficient and timely manner.

She explained the way it’s currently set up, the agency’s crisis workers, its emergency centre, the people who monitor its group-care facilities and foster-care homes and the employees who work with youth transitioning to independence or in need of job-skills training work out of four different locations.

“Our staff and resources were scattered all over the place, not because they should have been but because we didn’t have enough space at the one location,” she said. “So if somebody needs something, it takes time just to get everybody together.”

But once the new building opens, “When there’s a crisis, all the people you need are right there together,” she added.

Another big benefit will be the new facility will have space specifically designed for delivering therapeutic programs — things such as individual and family counselling, art, music and cultural activities.

“We’re a therapeutic organization, and we engage very significantly with young people who have suffered all kinds of trauma and loss,” Chapman said.

But the old buildings on Mayfair Avenue were never designed for that purpose, she added, “So you couldn’t do therapy in them because everybody could hear what was going on in any of the rooms.”

The kinds of services MYS offers include psychological counselling, crisis intervention, life-skills training and a safe environment for at-risk and traumatized youth to heal. In addition to its Winnipeg facilities, the agency has satellite offices in Thompson and The Pas. It also oversees a network of 81 foster homes throughout the province and has 23 clients living independently in apartments.

Chapman said MYS’s board of directors went to great lengths to ensure the agency could get the kind of building it needed for the amount it was prepared to spend — $7.5 million — and that the new facility would fit on the Mayfair Avenue site. She said that was always the preferred site because MYS already owns the properties outright, its emergency shelter is on Mayfair and it’s a central location.

“Being centrally located is really essential for both the people we serve and our staff. We need to be in place where people can get to us easily.”

She noted MYS has grown tremendously in the 15 years since she joined the agency.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca