Shout Clinic
Shout Clinic opened in July 1992 as a result of concerns expressed by community agencies about the health of homeless and street-involved youth, and the difficulties these youth had in accessing mainstream health providers. In 2002, there over 10,000 health care visits by young people under 25.
Shout Clinic is a comprehensive health service for homeless and street-involved youth under 25. We are located in downtown Toronto with a city-wide mandate. The main purpose of Shout Clinic is to reduce barriers to accessing health care for this youth population. Shout Clinic is a site of Central Toronto Community Health Centres, which is a non-profit charitable organization, governed by a volunteer Board of Directors.
Life on the Streets
It is estimated that there are about 10,000 street youth in Toronto at any one time, ranging in age from the early teens to mid-twenties. Research and our experiences at Shout have shown that it is an unbearable home life that often leads many young people to leave home and wind up on the streets. Others are kicked out by parents. The initial "excitement" of street life soon wears off, and street involvement becomes only temporary. Once on the street, few are able to get jobs or welfare assistance. Recent studies show less than a third to be on welfare or any kind of government assistance. Given the harshness of street life, the risks of physical and sexual assault, the constant hunger, deprivation, and the instability that characterizes their lives, home life is still seen as a much worse option for many of these youth.
Our Approach
Shout Clinic represents a unique and successful experiment in the delivery of health and social services. Perhaps the most important feature of the work of Shout Clinic is the degree to which services are tailored to the needs of our clients - street youth.
The community health centre approach of providing care at Shout means that staff not only deal with the treatment of disease and illness, but also deal with the broader social, cultural, and economic factors that influence health and well-being, such as: housing, education, employment, social supports and the environment. In order todeliver effective service for young people, Shout Clinic was developedwith the following criteria in mind:
- a thorough knowledge of the street youth population
- a value base that is non-judgmental and supportive
- a creative approach to service delivery that builds on partnerships
- an effort to involve youth in the planning and delivery of services
- a commitment to advocate for systemic and attitudinal changes.