Giving Them Our Best: Youth Mentoring Through Natural Supports

An In-Person Event Supporting Teen Mentoring in Schools

Join us at Alberta Mentoring Partnership’s 2023 Summit - Giving Them Our Best: Mentoring Youth Through Natural Supports! AMP believes in the transformational role of mentorship in the development and wellbeing of Alberta’s youth and communities. As educators, service providers, researchers, and youth, we all contribute towards healthy communities through Natural Supports—mutually beneficial relationships. Natural Supports are less formalized mentoring relationships that include close connections such as family and friends, and broader connections such as neighbours, teachers and coaches.

Young people in Alberta deserve every opportunity for positive lifelong development. Natural Supports are meant to activate the wider community of networks and supports around children and youth, to help them along their path to success, contributing to vibrant, thriving communities.

Join AMP in-person at the Edmonton Inn (11834 Kingsway NW, Edmonton, AB T5G 3J5) on October 19, 2023, to learn and experience how natural supports can complement your mentoring initiatives and the youth in your community.

Please share this opportunity with a friend, mentor, co-worker, youth or educator in your life! Follow us and subscribe to our newsletter for more AMP summit updates!

Sharing the best of ourselves, in community, is inherent in Indigenous communities. Our morning keynote, Cheryl Whiskeyjack, will inspire us as she shares about the responsibility we all have in mentoring youth, and the powerful ways mentorship can shape communities.

Bio | Cheryl Whiskeyjack

Cheryl is the Executive Director of the Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society and has been with Bent Arrow just about since its inception over a quarter-century ago. Now she oversees a suite of 21 different programs and services. The organization’s programming connects indigenous clients to the city around them, and helps them build skills and resilience that they can use in other parts of their lives.

Cheryl proudly serves as a board member of the Canadian Accreditation Council of Human Services, the Align Association of Community Services and was newly appointed to the Board of PolicyWise for Children Families. She has contributed to the work of EndPovertyEdmonton since its inception and currently acts as co-chair of the Stewardship Round Table. She also sits at the table for the National Advisory Council on Poverty. She acts as a mentor for the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations Executive Director Mentorship program and represents Bent Arrow through C5, a collaborative partnership of five non-profits using innovative engagement in vulnerable neighbourhoods. Cheryl is proud of the strong partnerships she has maintained across sectors.

A graduate of the Child Youth Care Program at Grant MacEwan University in 1995 and was recognized with Distinguished Alumni Award in 2018. She was also recognized with an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Alberta in 2021. Cheryl was also recognized as a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary Foundation in 2021.

Natural Supports Panel

Pam Krause is the President and CEO of the Centre for Sexuality. She has been with the Agency since 2001, taking on the leadership role in 2004. Graduating from the University of Calgary with a BA in Political Science, Pam began her career in municipal and provincial politics.

An advocate and activist on issues related to women’s equality and social justice, Pam has worked and volunteered in the Calgary non-profit community for 27 years. She became active in the 2SLGBTQ+ rights movement in the early 1990’s and continues to be a strong advocate for her community.

Under Pam’s leadership, the Centre for Sexuality has grown and today is the only non-profit organization in our community that provides comprehensive sexual health programs and services to people across the lifespan. The Centre is recognized for innovation in implementing programs that have meaningful results for the populations they serve.

Pam has a wealth of experience in leadership, governance and social innovation and is a strong advocate in our community.

Ian Amundson is the Manager of Clubs with Boys and Girls Club Big Brothers Big sisters in Edmonton. Ian has had the privilege of working alongside children in afterschool programing for the past 9 years. A graduate of secondary education, Ian is a teacher at heart, a simple way of saying that learning and self-growth is never really finished. In the past 3 years Ian has worked alongside community, children, educators, and afterschool programmers highlighting the importance of natural supports, while understanding how to effectively engage this into afterschool programs. Ian has been privileged to work alongside brilliant minds that co-created a principle based resource guide on how to develop our collective capacity to enhance the natural support networks of children 6-13-year-old in ‘out-of-school-time’ programs and contexts.

Ms. Reynolds is currently Managing Partner with Sterling Lifestyle Solutions (Canada) Inc, a management consultancy. Her consultancy focuses on public policy related to child development and the mental health and well-being of children, youth and families.

Prior to beginning her management consultancy in 2012, Ms. Reynolds was the founder and inaugural President and CEO of the Alberta Centre for Child, Family and Community Research (now known as PolicyWise). This followed a decade of executive leadership roles in the Government of Alberta including ADM Partnership and Innovation Alberta Children’s Services, ADM Population Health Alberta Health, and CEO Alberta Provincial Mental Health Advisory Board (seconded from Alberta Health), responsible for provincial mental health policy and delivery of provincial mental health services including children’s community mental health services. Ms. Reynolds was also a faculty member with the Max Bell Public Policy Training Institute for fourteen years.

Throughout her career, Ms. Reynolds has served on many local, provincial and national voluntary Boards. Current board roles include: National Institute of Families for Child and Youth Mental Health (FamilySmart), Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Alberta Division, CMHA Edmonton Region, Big Sisters Big Brothers Boys and Girls Club (BGCBigs) Edmonton Region, and the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation.

Lisa Bondt holds a Bachelor of Social Work degree from St. Thomas University and is currently working on her Masters of Social Work at the University of Calgary while working full time at Providence Child Development Society. Lisa is a registered Social Worker with the Alberta College of Social Workers.

For over five years, her experience highlights a passion in engaging multi-disciplinary teams in collaborative innovative approaches which engage families with young children and adults in prevention and early intervention services. Throughout Lisa’s career her passion has been working alongside young children and their families who face vulnerabilities in the early childhood and mental health sectors. Most recently, she leads the Social Work department of the Inclusive Child Care at Providence Children Society in Calgary, Alberta Canada. When addressing the question, who was a mentor to you when you were a youth? Lisa’s answer lies in the strong relationships with her swim coach and her Mom, who always believed that she was capable of what she put her mind to and to continue to try things and make mistakes, even if she was scared.

Schedule

Download the Full Brochure

Session Details:

A fun and interactive art activity facilitated by Jeff Gray from Antyx Arts, used as the vehicle for a conversation about how each individual can actively and intentionally make an impact through Social Snacking. Exploring the difference between community and neighbourhood, as well as what the difference between a lighthouse and flashlight approach is to prevention. Jeff will share examples of how Antyx has put Social Snacking into action in their practice, as well as share stories of some interactions with youth through the process. Get ready to take aim.

“We acknowledge that we are on and support Mentoring for Youth in the traditional territories across Alberta of the many First Nations from Treaty 6,7,& 8, the Métis of the 8 Alberta Settlements, and Inuit people whose footsteps have marked these lands for centuries.”