Youth Peer & Outreach

"The little program with a big heart"

To sum up in a sentence what can truly only be experienced, Youth Peer provides a supportive place for at-risk youth, ages 8 – 18, to be tutored and mentored by volunteers who are close to their age. It is this relationship—youth and peer mentor—that sparks the magic that happens here.

After an hour of one-on-one tutoring, the magic continues into the second hour with social mentoring, guitar instruction, creative art projects, and educational games.

Youth Peer & Outreach is a project that hums. Visiting one of the centres is like stepping into a beautifully functioning family. For youth clients, volunteers, university and college students, junior and senior staff, management partners and administrators, it is simply an enriching place to be.

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What is now called Youth Peer began in 1998 when EPIC adapted the program

from Island Community Justice. It has survived and thrived to become a community

institution serving hundreds of families every year.

In 2016, with on-going funding from Nova Scotia Education and Early Childhood,

and in partnership with Schools Plus, Outreach became a reality with Youth Peer

now able to serve additional communities: New Waterford, Glace Bay and Northside.

Socializing with university and high school mentors, staff, and other youth is a big part of the learning process for clients. Young people want to come back because they know they are welcomed and accepted unconditionally as “part  of the family.”

credits:
original ‘bird/book’ Youth Peer logo by Blake MacLean, former volunteer.
“The little program with a big heart” is a quote from a Volunteer Canada article (no longer available online) about the Youth Peer Transformation project; written Spring, 2004; Volunteer Canada was one of the funders during the 2003-2004 year.