The sunny weather reminds us that the school year is drawing to an end, and with that out thoughts turn to planning for next years’ group of students. Will we be able to create the same magic we have created this year?  How will we fund this magic, year after year?
Our answer lies with our Heroes; those people and organizations who have supported us every year with donations big and small.  They are reason we are able to make the magic that is Homework Club – and we mean magic.  Where else would you find a group of 40 or more high school students happily engaged in doing homework, three nights a week?  Where else would students from all age groups, grades and ability levels come together as a single group, united in a common purpose?  You remember high school – this just doesn’t happen! Where else would 18 formerly failing, completely disengaged students be found night after night, plotting their path from failure to high school graduation, and post-secondary education?  Magic is the only way to describe it, and heroes are the only way to get it done!
Would you like to be a Homework Club Hero?  A monthly donation of $25 is all it takes. Your contribution, joined with the contribution of 333 other heroes, will make certain that we are able to provide our own special brand of magic, year after year, to the students we serve and who so richly deserve it!

We’re just back from our third annual YEP! Spring Break retreat.  The Youth Engagement Project – or YEP! to us – provides social/emotional, academic and financial support to seriously at-risk students in the inner-city.  Often these students have had precarious relationships with schools and schooling, having fallen through the many cracks in the current education system, and they have struggled to find a way back in.
What we offer is support in finding their way back in, and more importantly, in staying in.  We create strong, healthy relationships with the students and their families, and work to develop a culture of achievement in the face of obstacles. Students commit to attending all of their classes, as well as Homework Club in the afternoons, and we commit to support their success by providing tutors for their academic needs, youth workers who understand their problems, opportunities to mentor and be mentored, and of course, our annual YEP! camp during Spring Break.
This is our third year at it, and the results are dramatic. The first year, students were reluctant to attend. Many had never been out of the inner-city, and were fearful of what the experience might be. The week after our first trip, they were already asking if we would go again next year.  This year, in September, the “old-timers” were filling the heads of the “newbies” with stories from camp, and the anticipation was high.  We had nearly 100% attendance.
Students spent three days hiking, fishing, hot-tubbing, geocaching and hanging out with friends on the banks of the beautiful Chilliwack River.  It is a chance to recharge after two terms of school, and to make plans for how to conquer the third. It is a chance to learn chess for the first time, or finally figure out latitude and longitude, to eat healthy meals, to unplug from technology, to build their first campfire. To be kids on a sunny day in the woods
For us the experience is moving every time.  We see the students soften and relax as they make meals together, sharing themselves along with their favourite dishes. We see them collaborate on chores, or in games, and learn more and more of their histories, their lives, and their strengths. They are resilient group and we are always in awe.

Two years ago, I approached the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School (AAS) program requesting $26,500 – the amount needed to provide bus passes to 50 students throughout the 10 months of the school year.  The good folks at AAS were nearly knocked off their feet by the request, but vowed to keep trying for us.  Today, Translink has officially announced a pilot program to provide passes and tickets to schools in impoverished neighbourhoods.
Most students who attend Britannia live within walking distance of the school, but it is not an easy walk. It is a walk that leads them past drug dealers and prostitutes, through dark projects and dangerous streets, and a one that causes the students and their parents endless concern.  Safety is always on their minds, and it affects their decisions about whether to attend early morning practices, off-timetable courses or Homework Club, to get help with their studies.  For others, it affects even whether or not they will attend school.  A half hour walk, in the pouring rain, without a coat or umbrella, means a whole day spent sitting in damp clothes.  Many of our students simply choose to stay home rather than spend a day miserable and cold.  It’s hard to blame them.
While we won’t be receiving the $26,500 we asked for two years ago, we will be able to serve a great number of students through a mix of bus passes and single ride tickets, and we are excited start the new year on such a positive note!
Translink pilots bus pass program.

Homework Club is hiring a Site Support Worker!
 About the Program:
Homework Club at Britannia is a well-established after school club providing free tutoring to Inner City youth struggling to graduate and move on to post-secondary success. We do this by offering four types of free support: Tutoring, Mentoring, Financial and Advocacy Support. This year, we will be partnering with Pathways to Education and the Our Place Graduation Strategy as a part of a cradle to college initiative to see children and youth in the V6A postal code realize their potential.
 Position Summary:
The Site Support Worker is responsible for ensuring a safe site environment for all programming.  The Site Support Worker is available on-site during programming activities and works with school staff, Youth Engagement Workers and Vancouver Homework Club Society Executive Director.
 Key responsibilities of this role include: student and volunteer attendance, monitoring resources and clean up or maintenance activities.
 Responsibilities and Tasks:

• Open and set up rooms at site locations;
• Conduct on-site safety checks and patrols, both scheduled and as needed;
• Set out volunteer and student name tags, attendance sheets, logs, newsletters and resources;
• Support security and caretaking routines specific to the site location;
• Supervise students leaving the building promptly and safely at end of programming;
• Work with Executive Director to handle emergency or difficult situations;
• Keep the Executive Director up-to-date on any student, volunteer, program or site issue or incident.
• Orient new volunteers and help to maintain their commitment and enthusiasm to the program.
• Update social media accounts with pictures and Homework Club news.

Common Responsibilities:

• Working in a manner that is safe, positive and inclusive for youth
• Ability to work as a team
• Follows confidentiality policies and procedures

 Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Experience with organization and multi-tasking
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Experience working with diverse groups of people, including youth
• Other languages an asset (per community requirements)
• Familiarity with Strathcona, Grandview-Woodlands, and DTES neighborhoods

Work Conditions:

•  Ability to work evenings Monday, Tuesday and Thursday

Basic Requirements:

• Criminal Record Check including the vulnerable sector.
• Valid level 1 First Aid Certificate will be an asset. 

Salary Range: $15.00 per hour
Send Resume and Cover Letter to:
Kim Leary
Vancouver Homework Club Society
[email protected]




Homework Club is hiring Youth Engagement Worker!
(2 Positions Available)
Program Overview 
The primary goal of Homework Club is to enhance the educational success of youth living in the Downtown Eastside, Strathcona and Grandview-Woodlands communities. It seeks to address barriers to success in high school by providing youth with social, academic, financial and advocacy supports. Homework Club is one element of the community-driven Our Place Graduation Strategy, a place-based approach to improving the educational success of children and youth living in the Inner City. The Strategy has brought together partners from the health, education, and social services sector, working collaboratively “to provide the necessary supports and services to children and families in order to ensure that the child will graduate from high school”. The Youth Engagement Project (YEP!) is entering its third year of advocacy and academic support of seriously at-risk students.
 Position Summary
The Youth Engagement Worker is responsible for providing 1-to-1 case management support to help youth succeed both academically and socially. This position involves outreach in homes, schools, and communities, as well as liaising with family members and school and community staff to support the educational needs of youth. In addition, youth engagement workers will facilitate after-school tutoring programming at Britannia Secondary and program monthly mentoring activities. The successful candidate will be dynamic, skilled and experienced connecting with diverse communities, including Aboriginal, newcomer, immigrant, and LGBTQ youth to ensure they feel safe, supported and connected. This position reports to the Executive Director of the Vancouver Homework Club Society.
 Responsibilities
1. Develop supportive and engaging relationships with youth

• Work with youth to identify goals, strengths, issues and students concerns, while supporting their participation in tutoring, mentoring, school and community activities

2. Monitor youth progress and participation

• Provide case-management support to youth participating in Youth Engagement Project (YEP!)
• Develop a plan in collaboration with student and appropriate adults (i.e. Parents, teachers & other school staff, community partners) to address needs/goals of individual youth
• Collect and monitor youth attendance in school as well as tutoring and mentoring with the goal of informing support strategies for youth

3. Maintain regular contact with families

• Facilitate and support parental involvement in the educational goals and plans for their child

4. Developing & maintaining tutoring programming

• Organize scheduling, space, routines, materials and data collection at tutoring site
• Maintain and develop relationships with community centre staff and other partners
• Develop diverse resources that address specific learning styles and needs

5. Support to volunteer tutors

• Facilitate volunteer training and ongoing supports such as communication and resources
• Develop, model and monitor the volunteer tutor’s role and tutoring techniques

 Required Qualifications

• A relevant post-secondary degree, or Child & Youth Care Diploma, plus 2 years of experience working with at-risk youth populations, or a combination of related education and work experience with youth 

 Desired Qualifications

• Experience working with youth and families in the DTES, Strathcona & Grandview-Woodlands communities
• Experience providing case management support
• Knowledge and understanding of the factors affecting educational success for youth in this community
• Knowledge of and/or experience working with the public school system (grade 7 -12)
• Specific training and/or experience with youth with special needs or new language learners
• Experience working with volunteers, including training and developing resources
• Knowledge of community and social service resources
• Additional languages an asset (Cantonese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Arabic) 

 Dimensions of Work

• Primary interface is with youth and volunteers in the YEP!
• Direct reporting relationship to Executive Director
• Coordination and sharing information with relevant program, school, and community staff

 Work Conditions

• Hours are based on a flexible schedule. Workers should be available to work evenings and potentially weekends, as there may be a need for earlier or later hours depending upon circumstances to offer support to youth at key times.  However, core hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday between 3pm – 7pm.
• Travel between multiple sites in the community

 Basic Requirements:

• Criminal Record Check including the vulnerable sector.
• Valid level 1 First Aid Certificate will be an asset.

Salary Range: $1,500 per month (approximately 20 hours per week)
Send Resume and Cover Letter to: Kim Leary, Vancouver Homework Club, [email protected]
Please reference “Homework Club – Youth Engagement Worker” in all correspondence.


We thank you for your interest, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Because we are located in a community centre, we often find people peaking their noses in our door, lost and looking for directions.  So, it was no surprise last Tuesday, to find two young women standing at our door.  The surprise was that they were not lost or looking for directions but rather, were making a homecoming of sorts.
When I approached the two to ask if I could help, one stepped forward and said, “I don’t know if you remember me.  I used to come here with my brother “John” when I was little.”  Now, “John” and I have quite a history (a story for another time) so I immediately knew who this young woman was.  She was “Margaret”, who had been a tiny little waif trailing along behind her older brother the last time I saw her.


“Margaret” is now the mother of a one year old son, and is expecting her second child in October, but she was quick to point out that she is still in high school, still working on graduating. Which brings us to the reason she had stopped by.
Although she is in a very supportive program for young mothers, she still finds herself struggling and thinks about quitting everyday.  One such day, when she was struggling to finish math homework with a toddler crawling all over her, she thought about Homework Club and how we had helped her brother.  How we had brought in a Spanish speaking volunteer to help her newly arrived parents navigate this new school system.  How we had always been so nice to her.  Her question was simple, “Could I come here? I need help.”
And our answer was just as simple.  “Of course!  Come on in.  Have you eaten?”
“Margaret” has been back twice now, and handed in so much math homework the other day that her teachers were shocked.  She no longer lives in the neighbourhood and has to travel a considerable distance to get here.  She hasn’t spoken to her brother in a couple of months, but her parents still live just down the block.  And on Thursday, “Margaret” and the Spanish speaking volunteer, who now sits on our Board of Directors, reconnected as well.
I’ve always thought that one of the magical things about Homework Club is the meaningful connections we make with the students we serve, but moments like this really reaffirm what we have always said: it’s about so much more than homework!

At Homework Club, we don’t just want our students to graduate high school. We want to see them complete post-secondary and, hopefully, to be debt free when they’re done.  That’s why, this week, we called in an expert to talk about scholarship applications.
Former Britannia student Celina (now a Homework Club volunteer), who received more than $70,000 in scholarships when she graduated four years ago, was on hand to share tips with current grade 12s about how they could finance their own post-secondary educations.
Along with an informative powerpoint presentation, Celina shared personal experiences and helped students to understand the rate of return on scholarship applications, “No one wants to write essays voluntarily, but if you spend 2 hours on an application and receive even $500, that’s $250 an hour. How much do you make at your part-time job?”
Best of luck to all of our grade 12s on their scholarship applications!

Mother Theresa once said, “peace begins with a smile”.  What you see on these faces is the peace that comes from learning, the peace that comes from a job well done, the peace that comes from knowing people care about you and support you in your educational journey.
Peace is what we try to offer everyday to the students in Homework Club, and every day we are rewarded with a smile or two like these.

On my bookshelves today, I still have books that I received as a child:  an illustrated copy of Treasure Island from my granddad, a three volume set of classics bound in brown “leather” from my nana, a red leather and gold leaf Bible that I (inappropriately) received from a teacher.  They take up space and I haven’t looked at them in years, but I would never get rid of them because they sparked my life-long love affair with books.  When I look at them, I think how lucky I am that someone cared enough to spark this passion in me, and how well it has served my whole life.

So, when I was contacted at the beginning of the December by one of our friends at the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund asking if we could use a donation of books, I enthusiastically said yes!  I had no idea the treasure that was going to be dropped off to us though. Books, hundreds of beautiful, brand new books, with subjects ranging from vampire romances to nerdy kids winning the day, each designed to capture the imagination of a teen, the same way mine had been captured as a child.

Generosity like that has to be shared, and so, as classes were wrapping up this week, each Britannia student in the 8th grade received a book wrapped in ribbon, specially chosen for them by Homework Club and their English teachers from among the Children’s Fund treasure. The students were excited as carts of books rolled into classrooms with their names on them, and thrilled to run around the room comparing their books with the books of their classmates.  Shouts of “lucky!” sometimes followed by horse trading ensued, as students sat down to look at the treasures they had received. For some, the real book enthusiasts, it was almost a religious experience.  For others, it was the first time they had ever been gifted a book, and they were a bit stunned by the unusual experience.
​
Later, in class after class, I saw students reading the books they had received, students I didn’t even know read, and I wondered how many life-long love affairs we sparked this week?