Pathways | Programs for Youth Who are Marginalized and/or Experiencing Multiple Barriers

Programs for Youth Who are Marginalized and/or Experiencing Multiple Barriers

Addictions / Substance Use, Education, Employment, Food, Housing / Shelter, Public Health, and Youth Services

Provided by Access Youth Outreach Services Society

Provides programs and services for youth ages 12-23 who may be disadvantaged, marginalized, or at-risk.

Presently, services and programs are offered in the Tri Cities communities – Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody. The programs offered include:

Youth Empowerment Worker: The Youth Empowerment program is a referral-based program that is open to all youth who are facing barriers between the ages of 12 – 23. You may self-refer or be referred to one of our Youth Empowerment Workers (YEWs) through other service providers, agencies, RCMP, MCFD, and/or school. The purpose of the Youth Empowerment program is to provide youth with one-to-one support geared towards their personal development, long-term goals, and well-being. This program can help youth learn to manage anxiety/depression, relationships, life skills, substance use/misuse, peer pressure, school concerns, mentorship, and trauma.
Junior Employee Program: Provides youth with employment readiness skill development and training. This program has hired youth to be Peer Mentors in after-school programs or Jr. Outreach Youth Workers for Project Reach Out. These youth are hired by and work for the agency while learning how to become successful in the workforce.
Career Building: An employment program to serve the youth of the Tri-cities! This innovative program partners with Work BC and other non-profits in the Tri-Cities catchment to provide youth up to 24 years old with job skills training, interviewing skills, resume building and finally access to the employment market.
Youth Gour-Made: This program is offered in a mobile and virtual setting so youth participants can learn fundamental life skills such as pre-cutting and pre-measuring your ingredients (mise en place), learning what a boiling point is at Fahrenheit and Celsius, and how to cook all the ingredients together, right in the comfort of their own home. Each week the Gour-Made team delivers right to your front door a recipe of the week, the food parcels with all the ingredients needed to complete the recipe of the week, enough ingredients for youth participants to feed their entire household dinner with the recipe of the week, and a recipe card with step-by-step cooking instructions.
Art Journaling Group: An in-person 8-week after-school program. Each week is a themed conversation around topics like consent, boundaries, what do healthy relationships look like, substance use/abuse and many other important topics of conversation for our youth to explore together guided by a facilitator. Each topic is paired with a corresponding art project that complements the topic.
Project Reach Out (PRO): Also known as “The Bus,” is an innovative, an award-winning mobile youth Centre. The Bus is a mobile one-stop-shop for youth to access food, clothing, winter gear, blankets, sexual health supplies, harm reduction supplies (including Naloxone), personal hygiene supplies, and menstrual health products. Outreach Workers on the Bus also provide sexual health and drug education, counselling support, conflict resolution, referrals, and in-the-moment support. The Bus is LGBTQ2S+ friendly and operates from a harm reduction lens.