Much has changed around Waterdown since Healthy Youth Network launched almost 15 years ago, but the organization’s mission has stayed the same: to provide local families raising teens with the support and resources they need.
Penny Deathe teamed up with local educator Lynda Wigood to launch HYN – first known as Healthy Community Healthy Youth – in 2009, when she faced navigating the teen years as a parent herself.
“My son had just started high school, and I asked to hold a community meeting, because I was hearing all this chatter about drugs and wild parties and all this kind of stuff,” she told FlamboroughToday. “So it was just about trying to kind of figure out what was true and what wasn't, and what we should be concerned about and what was maybe overblown.”
From the first public meeting, says Deathe, the level of commitment from the community was apparent. School council members, the school board’s social worker, the John Howard Society and other stakeholders quickly came on board.
Deathe soon learned about the 40 Developmental Assets, the framework that underpins everything HYN does – then and today. The assets are centred around five key principals for guiding youth to effectively engage with the world around them: Expand Possibilities, Share Power, Provide Support, Express Care and Challenge Growth.
“I used to call it the owner's manual, the one that kids don't come with,” said Deathe.
Building awareness, support
For the first few years, HYN worked to create awareness about asset building, and how the whole community could get involved; Trillium Foundation funding enabled them to host workshops and outreach programs. At that point, they worked with supporting organizations like the John Howard Society, the YMCA and Flamborough Connects. The next step, said Deathe, was developing programs.
That resulted in initiatives such as the What’s Your Path? speaker series, aimed at connecting students with local professionals as they figured out their career options.
From the beginning, HYN has had been attuned to the issues that impact local youth; for example the 2010 death of WDHS student Chris Skinner during a night of binge drinking and the following inquest in 2012 highlighted the need for supports around youth and alcohol; in 2014 educators were addressing reports of “jock culture” behaviour at the school, and in 2021 the school dress code policy came under fire.
In the midst of it all, the pandemic happened, serving to underscore the myriad mental health needs of youth.
Better outcomes for youth
“Whether it's been mental health or bullying, it’s been about how do we address those issues that the schools are facing with students, and how do we as a community support the schools and work with the youth for better outcomes, so that we're all working together,” said Deathe.
HYN received its charitable status in 2021; the timing allowed the organization to reassess its direction, says Deathe, who served as public school board trustee for Flamborough from 2014 until 2022.
“COVID, I think, did allow us that time to stop and think about where we go from here,” she said, adding that the relationship with the board is strong. “The schools are incredible with us, they give us that space. They trust us to come into the schools, they trust us to meet with stewards, they trust us to get feedback.”
HYN’s mandate has always been to complement the work being done in local schools, and they are careful not to work at cross purposes or duplicate efforts. That means, at times, shifting focus. For example, the original plan to support students transitioning from elementary to high school has changed to support high school students and youth moving on to post-secondary. What’s Your Path? Changed from in-person sessions to an online portal, and now features a “Speakers Bureau” that enables local professionals to sign up to speak to classes.
A program with HEART
HYN launched its most visible program, the Healthy Education About Relationships (HEART) team, in response to WDHS’s “jock culture image”. It is delivered in Waterdown and at Sir Allan MacNab in Hamilton. The teams are student-led and facilitated by MacKenzie Boers, who delivers events such as “The Dating Game” and a breakfast event with speakers, skits and activities. Though it arose from a negative incident, the HEART team uses a positive, pro-active approach to get kids talking about thorny topics such as gender-based violence, consent and mental health.
HEART will continue in 2025, with an eye to providing the model to other schools.
Looking to the future
Among the biggest change for HYN in 2025: the popular Paint Challenge will be retired. The biggest fundraiser for the organization ran every year on the last day of school - unfortunately, in recent years, the weather didn’t cooperate. So, the plan is to introduce a series of smaller events that engage more of the community. The fundraising team will meet in the new year, but Deathe says competitions such as a bake-off involving students, local restaurants and other community mentors is one idea that is taking root.
As for programming, Deathe continues to think big. She’d love to continue to enhance the Speakers Bureau and wants to develop resources for kids who want to make the most of a gap year following high school. She’s also keen to develop an app or game that engages kids while building life skills.
Whatever the future holds, HYN will be ready to meet the challenge.
“Whether it's mental health or bullying, how do we, as a community, address those issues that the schools are facing with students? And that was the original conversation back in 2009: how do we as a community support the schools and work with the youth for better outcomes, so that we're all working together?”
