Navigating Supported Employment and Education Services for Youths During COVID-19 and Severe Weather Events.

In 2021, the British Columbia (BC) Interior experienced a series of unprecedented disasters, ranging from extreme heat and wildfires to catastrophic flooding and evacuations. Along with these severe weather events, BC was affected by COVID-19 outbreaks and public health restrictions. Despite these challenges, communities worked to ensure that youths who are at risk for increased mental health challenges continued to have access to services that promote well-being, such as individual placement and support programs for supported employment and education. This Open Forum presents program considerations and adaptations in Foundry Penticton, one of 12 province-wide integrated youth hubs, to ensure service delivery during acute and chronic disasters.

Learning Through a Pandemic: Youth Experiences With Remote Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The objective of this paper was to examine the school-related experiences of youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants represented both clinical and community youth aged 14 to 28 who were sampled as part of a larger study. Feedback from youth attending school during the pandemic was qualitatively examined and youth who planned to attend school prior to the pandemic and did (n = 246) and youth who planned to attend but did not (n = 28) were compared quantitatively. Youth appreciated the flexibility of online learning and some also reported experiencing a lack of support from their school and the need for instructor training on how to deliver virtual classes effectively. Future studies should examine what factors influence student engagement with virtual learning, what strategies could improve supports for student in their long-term career development, and the longitudinal experiences of youth who may have chosen not to go back to school due to the pandemic. This survey was conducted in Ontario, Canada. A more diverse sample collected outside of Ontario would improve generalizability. Qualitative data were based on survey responses and not interviews. Thus we were unable to discern the reasons youth decided to attend school, or not, during the COVID-19 pandemic.