Content warning: this article deals with suicide and self-harm, particularly among 2SLGBTQ+ youth.
St. Albert's 2SLGBTQ+ youth support and advocacy organization Outloud is pleading for funding assistance as local youth suicide attempts have reportedly reached a crisis point.
Outloud's executive director, Terry Soetaert, and Bekah Marcellus, one of the organization's three support workers, gave a presentation to city council on April 18 requesting $50,000 in one-time funding to hire more staff, as the youth-to-staff ratio at the weekly drop-ins regularly reaches 20 to one.
Council heard that the non-profit works with about 60 youth on a weekly basis, and have supported nearly 300 unique kids between the ages of five and 24 over the past year. More than 200 of those youth are transgender or gender diverse.
“Over 50 per cent of these kids exhibit high-risk behaviours, including suicidal ideation and self-harm,” Marcellus said. “Currently, St. Albert is facing a youth suicide crisis and we aren't the only ones noticing.”
“We have over a dozen kids who have attempted suicide in the last 12 months, and even more who are desperate to keep their friends alive and who at only 12 years old have had to call 911 on a suicidal friend.”
“St. Albert's kids are starting to slip through the cracks,” said Marcellus.
In an interview, Soetaert said the crisis has become difficult to manage on a day-to-day basis.
“It's horrible but it's a reality that, our trans kids especially, are feeling like they don't have a place in the world and can't get by, so then a lot of them attempt suicide,” he said. “I hate to say that we get callous by it, but it's every day.”
Soetaert explained that $50,000 will allow the organization to shift a part-time staff member to full-time, and hire a fourth full-time support worker.
Without additional staff moving forward, Soetaert said he feared current staff members will burn out. Recently two of the roughly 30 regular volunteers that work with Outloud needed to step away, Soetaert said.
“They said that they can't do it anymore, that it's too stressful,” he said. “We're worried that it's going to be the same with the staff, and we just need more people to help take care of the load.”
Council heard that the organization has already applied for nine various grants, however Soetaert said he thought the group would be lucky to receive one or two. Another concern, Soetaert explained, was that Outloud may not receive an answer from any of the grants for some time.
“It's right now that we're stuck,” he said.
Council weighing options
Following Outloud's presentation on April 18 no motions were put forward by council, as Mayor Cathy Heron said council will need some time to discuss what options are available.
“I don't know where it's going to go yet,” Heron said regarding the organization's funding request. “Council will probably be very open to some sort of help, but we haven't talked about it, and I'm just letting council mull it over.”
Heron said she plans to wait a week before asking colleagues for ideas.
“It's nice when you could try to fit an ask like that in policy ... it's nice to have policies and rules because if you don't you get these one-offs that are very politically motivated,” Heron said, explaining that she's concerned if the city was to provide the full $50,000 request, the funds could be perceived as council having “personal favourite charities.”
Coun. Mike Killick, who represents council as a non-voting member of the citizen-based Community Services Advisory Committee (CSAC), told the Gazette he plans to see if the CSAC could produce some interim-funding in advance of next year's allocation of the city's Outside Agency Grant.
Last December, the CSAC approved the 2023 allocation of the annual grant program, and Outloud received $28,000.
“I'm going to ask at (the Tuesday, April 25 CSAC meeting) if there's some other way that we can do a mid-year funding request,” Killick said. “It's quite unusual that we would give out a mid-year or first quarter increase to what we've already given them because we gave out the full amount of money that we had to allocate to all of the different community groups.”
“It would have to take some creative thinking of where we could maybe come up with some additional funds.”
The Gazette will report on any relevant decisions made by the CSAC on April 25.
Soetaert said the organization isn't limited in how funds can be used, so any one-time donations through the organization's website could go toward hiring another support worker.
“We'll take anything that we can get.”
