Helping LGBTQ2+ Youth Navigate Healthcare

By Jayden Grieve (he/him)

For many young people, access to healthcare can seem daunting. Services are scattered and there is often no clear place to get started. Fortunately, the Victoria Youth Clinic (VYC) works to ensure that youth aged 12 to 24 have access to comprehensive healthcare services.

“We have a drop-in health clinic where we primarily do STI screening, birth control, and stuff like that,” says Lauren Rumiel (she/her), the clinic’s concurrent Disorder Case Manager and Intake Counsellor. “We also do drop-in counselling. So, any day Monday through Friday, young people can call and ask to speak to a councillor. We used to run more social and recreational things, art drop-ins and groups and different things like that, but we had to shift how we work because of the [COVID-19] pandemic.”

An Ever-Growing Need

Based at 818 Douglas Street, the clinic has worked since 1998 to help youth navigate often complex and disconnected health programs and services. Over the years, the nonprofit has had to expand capacity and programming to meet the increasing needs of the community. In 2018, they became the lead agency for Foundry Victoria, a province-wide initiative that provides a variety of youth services.

“When we became Foundry, we got provincial funding to create a bigger variety of services and to partner and integrate with other community programs,” says Rumiel. Discussing partnerships, Rumiel gives some examples that reach beyond strictly primary healthcare stating that “we have partnerships with GT Hiring, Discovery Youth, and Family Services providing substance counselling. We have a relationship with Trans Care BC and we have a relationship with early psychosis intervention.”

It can be difficult to navigate the complex systems of health and social services, especially for young folks who may be encountering them for the first time and may not be able to define what they need. Foundry helps connect the dots between the many services available in Victoria, and they’re always looking to incorporate new links into their network.

“We are always trying to find new partnerships and new funding avenues to continue to grow our services,” says Rumiel. “It’s just such a challenge across the board in our province and, specifically, in Victoria. There’s just such a lack of services and people run into waitlists everywhere and we are no different.”

Serving Trans* Youth

Foundry makes an effort to assess what services are lacking locally and work to make them available, such as health services for trans* youth.

“We do some gender affirming care. I think it’s been a real initiative for recognizing such a lack of services for people in Victoria, so we’re trying to train up our doctors and address those needs,” says Rumiel. “In Victoria, there are a limited number of doctors who do things like hormone readiness assessment and starting hormones and things like that. So, we are trying to adapt and fill a need for that in the community.”

Rumiel says that the team at the clinic have worked to make their programs accessible and inviting to people of all identities.

“All of our programs, whether that’s in our therapy group or our youth action advisory committee, are a diverse blend of all different kinds of people from all different kinds of gender presentations and sexual identities. So, even though we’re not specifically a LGBT youth-specific service, that population is definitely woven into all the services we provide.”

The staff at Foundry too, Rumiel says, are a diverse mix of identities, and they’re all dedicated to the organisation’s mission. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the provincial Foundry has begun a variety of virtual social groups to try and fill some of the gap left after local Foundrys needed to cancel in-person gatherings. One such group is the weekly online drop-in for Indigenous and Two-Spirit youth called Snowflakes and Rainbows. There is also the Queer Cafe for LGBTQ2IA+ young people ages 12-24.

Empowering Young People Through Better Health and Wellness

Rumiel says she most enjoys seeing the impact that the services VYC and Foundry provide to so many young people.

“The best part of doing the job is meeting all these young people, and listening to what’s going on for them,” she says, “And it’s just really so great to have young people have a voice to say ‘I want this, this is what I need’ and execute that with them. To empower them to think about their own health and wellness and what they really want.”

Are you a youth located in Victoria and wanting to visit the Victoria Youth Clinic and access their programs? The clinic is located at 818 Douglas Street and is open Monday to Friday from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM.

Youth Clinic: https://victoriayouthclinic.ca/
Foundry: https://foundrybc.ca/

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