Organizers for the Voices of Our Youth Conference recorded some spots for the conference on Saturday at Carlton. (Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D’Andrea

Voices of Our Youth

Voices of Our Youth Conference to lift up our young and showcase their resilience

May 10, 2021 | 10:27 AM

Teachers, advocates and resilient youth in the Prince Albert area have come together to put on a conference looking to help social workers, educators and those that interact with youth to understand some of the struggles youth are going through and what they need to overcome obstacles.

The Voices of Our Youth Virtual Conference will be streamed for free on May 27 from 1-4 p.m.

The conference will feature spots from elder Liz Settee, keynote speakers Cody Demerais and Jonny Caisse, and Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan Russ Mirasty. Some of the sections of the conference were pre-recorded on Saturday at Carlton Comprehensive Public High School. Others will be live, and will allow participants to ask questions to the event’s speakers.

“We have amazing voices talking about their social issues, personal issues, how they overcame things, their strength; and how the community has served them, helped them, but also what we could be doing better,” conference co-chair Tricia Lucyshyn said. “What do we need to do to continue lifting them up and rallying around them.”

“We’re on islands, professionally. And we sometimes don’t know what each other are doing,” added Lucyshyn. “If we could come together as adult allies who serve youth and hear their voices and more forward, we can strengthen our community—and most importantly our youth.”

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The conference was two years in the making. Lucyshyn attended a children’s advocate youth conference in Saskatoon, and was inspired to bring similar ideas to Prince Albert. She had a lunch with local advocate Nicole Rancourt, who started to bring more people to the fold and everything started to come together. The first conference was scheduled to run last May in-person, but was cancelled at the beginning of the pandemic.

“We didn’t want to give this up. We really believe this is what our community needs. We need to be lifting our youth up,” conference co-chair Tricia Lucyshyn said. “This is the best time to be doing it too, because they’re amazing, they’re there and they need to be heard. Everything has fallen into place.”

Elder Liz Settee dedicates her life to help youth and families heal, especially Indigenous youth and families. She hopes this conference can help the adults in charge of youth.

“To let them know that their work is not in vain. They might see a youth that they think is troubled, and all this other stuff, but when they see him or her succeeding [it’s very rewarding],” Settee said. “But also some of our systems, I feel, this is my opinion, but some of our systems are broken. They actually put barriers up for our youth to excel in life. Maybe this will allow them to see some of those barriers and be better to help our youth. This is our future. These youth are our future. The better we can make it for them, the better we can make it for our younger ones.”

The biggest barrier Settee wants to see taken down is the length of youth care. She believes those that age out of the youth care system still need care of some sort.

“For the youth in care, when they’re 18, they’re basically kicked out. Where do they go? What do they have?,” Settee said. “So once again, they’re left on their own to fend on their own devices. I know there’s a start, I think they can stay until they’re 20 now, but we have such a shortage in housing. So many youth I work with are couch surfing, with family problems.”

Registration is free. Organizations and individuals can register for the virtual conference by emailing Kandace Korycki at kanpark04@gmail.com.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW