The Hive Youth Hub by Kickstand celebrated its third birthday this spring and is carrying the forward momentum.
Grace MacLellan, the Hive’s operations lead presented to Bonnyville council at the Oct. 14 regular council meeting.
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She talked about the history of The Hive and the current day operations.
“This proposal started in 2019 in May with the primary care network and we’re quite proud of that work that we did at the beginning,” said MacLellan.
This past spring not only marked their third birthday but also a major step in their journey.
“Just celebrated our third birthday in the spring with a fully renovated building,” she said. “We can probably say this September, had the highest numbers of youth come through the doors with over 100 new youth come through the doors.”
The Hive is a low barrier, easily identifiable and youth-friendly one stop shop.
“We just want to make sure they have access to the services that they need,” said MacLellan. “Accessing services that promote and maintain their mental health is the biggest piece,” “More good days ahead is our mantle and mantra that we’ve adopted under the kickstand name of the hive.”
While they work with youth MacLellan pointed out, they are not a childcare centre, nor a one-on-one support program. They work on six core service streams, mental health, substance use, physical and sexual health, Indigenous services, peer support and social services.
MacLellan provided a chart which shows age groups 16-24 and 25-34 are low in service use.
“But service use is still quite low, so we’re looking at how we can provide access and the Hive by Kickstand does that,” she said. “Youth are coming in and by having conversations we’re changing the conversation, really one conversation at a time by offering opportunities to do things differently.”
One of their goals is to expand the age of those they service.
“We want to make sure that youth have access to services like the Hive by Kickstand as young as 11 and as old as 25,” said MacLellan.
They’ve been rolling out a communication plan which has five phases. It began with team and youth feedback and has moved into the Town of Bonnyville delegation. They plan to start sharing information on social media and host a community open house on Oct. 22 from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The official age expansion to 11-25 is expected to take place on Nov. 17.
Mayor Elisa Brosseau asked if transportation is a barrier for those youth that live in the municipal district.
“Transportation is one of our biggest barriers we’ve addressed that, especially with our indigenous youth in communities, that was something we were working on earlier today talking with colleagues how do we get youth there,” said MacLellan. “Myself and another youth have been asked to be on the planning committee for a conference in Edmonton in the summer and even how do we get youth to that conference.
“That’s one of the things that’s probably the most difficult is how, when there’s no buses, we see our numbers decrease when the bussing doesn’t run.”
The Hive’s services can be found online at mykickstand.ca or at 5011 50 Ave. in Bonnyville.
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