About Us: Department Summaries
 HomeBridge
Youth Society provides a multi-disciplinary approach to residential
youth care, which is comprised of seven departments. They include:
Youth Care
The mandate of the youth care team is to provide services to youth
and their families. These services focus on producing experiences
assisting youth and their families in understanding differently
the impacts they have on relationships with each other, and make
recommendations for change. These changes take time, clarity,
and commitment from all involved. The youth care team exists to
provide the structure, clarity, context, and meaning of the behaviours
and experiences while a youth is in a HomeBridge residential facility.
The role of the youth care team is not to be a substitute for
the parent, rather a therapeutic intervener that provides feedback
assisting in change that meets the needs of the family.
Statement of Need
The predominant themes our clients require us to have are accountability,
consistency, and commitment in how we work together.
A focus on being accountable allows us to monitor ourselves to
be able to assess increases and decreases in the performance of
our services. It also allows us to adjust responsively to achieve
the desired result clients, stakeholder, funders and ourselves,
as an organization are seeking. Everyone wants to have accountability
yet accepting and embracing the Afeeling@ of being accountable
separates good teams from great teams. Clients need us to have
a system of accountability to provoke predictability and in turn
a sense of safety.
Broad Strategy
All HomeBridge Youth Society services operate from a team approach
as a model for intervening and providing effective outcomes. This
is accomplished by utilizing a team approach with a focus on best
practice, which assists in fostering successful interventions
and treatment.
Please refer to the Our Facilities menu for a greater understanding
of the youth care profession, and the youth care approach utilized
by HomeBridge Youth Society.
Clinical Team
The Clinical Team, which is multi-disciplinary, is comprised of
six full-time positions and one contract, term position, as follows.
Full-time Positions
- Coordinator of Clinical Standards and Development
- Psychologist
- Care Coordinator
- Program Coordinator
- Youth Care Worker (School Support)
- Clinical Social Worker
Contract Position
Clinical Team
The Clinical Team is informed by research, knowledge, and practice
skills from the fields of Social Work, Psychology, and Child and
Youth Care.
It is the vision of the Clinical Team to be a resource to all
facilities within the HomeBridge Community to ensure that youth
and their families receive the best possible services. The Clinical
Team Vision is supplementary to the Vision of the greater organization.
Finance
The “finance department” is actually one person,
the Controller/Business Manager of HomeBridge Youth Society.
The finance department is essential to the ongoing operations
of HomeBridge Youth Society, as all monies received from the Department
of Community Services for operations, are filtered and managed
through this office to each facility. The focus is to ensure that
the organization follows its annual budget very closely by tracking
monthly grants and per diem (“care day”) billings,
as well as tracking expenses for each facility.
The business manager is responsible for all financial matters
related to the organization, including the day-to-day recording
of financial information; monthly, quarterly and yearly budget
preparation, support and analysis; financial statement preparation
and analysis, as well as, preparation and forecasting of financial
variance reports for the board of directors and the executive
director.
There is a constant need for the executive director and board
to be kept apprized of financial trends that the organization
and facilities experience. The business manager presents solutions
and suggestions to ensure the organization operates within its
budget and continues to be financially stable. This is a pivotal
role in ensuring we operate in a financially sound environment.
Administrative
The administration department is the central hub of all internal
and external communications pertaining to HomeBridge Youth Society.
All human resource, clerical, food services, inventory control,
licensing, insurance, occupational health and safety, training,
and board business are managed from this center.
Offices of the executive director, coordinator of youth care,
office manager, business manager and Reigh Allen Centre receptionist
are located at the Reigh Allen Centre, as well as several rooms
to accommodate meetings and training.
Special Projects and New Initiatives
As the organization has grown, and the needs of the young people
have increased, it was identified that a focus on special projects
and new initiatives was necessary. Licencing requirements, programming
opportunities, and advanced employee training initiatives needed
specialized concentration.
The role of the special projects and new initiatives department
is to complete “one time” projects, and to further
enhance the opportunities and resources for the young people and
the organization from a global perspective. This is done by developing
new partnerships, securing funding resources, and collaborating
with current stakeholders.
Examples of “one time” projects completed would include,
the relocation of the Cogswell House program from Halifax to Lower
Sackville, and the development of an extensive employee orientation
manual. Global program initiatives have included the conception
and execution of the Art Experience Project and the Expressions
program, which have focused on building resiliency and life skills
in youth. Conflict education training for HomeBridge employees
and Halifax Regional Police Officers was secured, and a training
package that includes a video and manual was developed for future
employees.
These initiatives provide the young people served with increased
holistic and individualized resources and choices, to facilitate
the changes needed in their various life stages and to promote
long-term success.
Maintenance
The maintenance department is based at the Reigh Allen Centre
and is comprised of three full time maintenance workers and one
maintenance supervisor. This department is responsible for ongoing
maintenance and upkeep for all HomeBridge Youth Society facilities.
The maintenance department utilizes a priority scale to address
facility requests for maintenance. Each request is reviewed and
answered by level of priority, which ranges from P-1 to P-5, where
P-1 is the highest priority and P-5 is the lowest priority.
P1
An emergency where it is clear that the health, welfare or safety
of the employees or residents of the facility are at risk. If
required contact police, fire or ambulance immediately when a
life threatening emergency occurs.
Examples: broken furnace, broken window or glass, malfunction
of smoke detector or fire panel, or anything else structural or
mechanical.
P2
Not an emergency, however equally as important as a P1. This request
may be able to wait or function until a maintenance team member
is available for repairs.
Examples: broken toilet lever, small leak under the sink,
broken appliance, etc.
P3
Needs to be attended to ASAP prior to becoming an emergency over
time if neglected.
Examples: running low on safety salt, or emergency lighting
bulb out.
P4
These items may be taken care of by employees if there is no possibility
of casing an occupational health and safety issue to either the
employees or residents in the facility.
Examples: putting salt on a walkway, changing a light
bulb, hanging pictures, etc.
P5
A project that would bring further convenience to the running
of a facility.
Examples: employees would like a book shelf or coat rack
built, painting not deemed necessary to Provincial Standards,
etc.
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