Several criticisms have been made in recent years towards youth centers on the under-education of young people. At Le Tremplin school, in the Chambly youth center, we have taken major steps to improve the school experience of young people and promote their success. We are now focusing on positive reinforcement and a trauma-sensitive approach. And it seems to be paying off.
Passing the door of Mylène and Nathalie’s classroom, you immediately feel a calming effect: the lighting is dimmed, soft music makes you want to slow down and the smell of essential oil in the orange mixes with that of the fresh bread baked in class that morning.
The seven students in this primary school class in adapted training are starting from afar: complex traumas, attachment disorders, lack of important learning. Many of them have not been to school for a long time. “Our goal is for children to want to come to school, for them to be well, for them to settle down and become learners, explains Mylène. We have created a small haven of peace for them in which they can experience success. »
A colorful mural depicts students in superhero costumes. They each have their superpowers, which echo their respective personalities. Motoman can help everyone with his vehicle, Wolf talks to animals, Helpman always knows who is in need and how to take care of people…
Mylène and Nathalie base themselves on the interests of young people to develop their skills through concrete projects. They visit elderly people, go camping in the classroom and follow the incubation of chicks. So many opportunities to give them positive experiences and success.
“At parent meetings — which generally include the biological family, the foster family and the interveners — the parents often tell us that this is the first time they have heard something beautiful from their child”, proudly underlines the school principal, Valérie Côté.
Before the visit of Duty, outside class hours so as not to disturb their routine so essential to their proper functioning, the students all wrote a word about their class. They evoke the chicks, the fish, the special activities, the baking of bread on Monday morning. A young person mentions the importance of bubble corners in the classroom. Another says he “loves going outside to play,” emphasizing “twice a day.”
Mylène and Nathalie are talking about recess. The children had such a psychosocial delay when they arrived that they did not even know what to do during these periods of free play outside. “We had to teach them to play,” says Mylène, full of empathy.
Exit the suspensions
When a child is too turbulent, Nathalie will go out with him in the hallway to try to understand what is affecting him and help him find solutions to resume his role as a learner. If that doesn’t work, she’ll suggest that he take a break in the living unit upstairs.
“We don’t use suspensions or withdrawals, we don’t want it to be seen as rejection,” explains Nathalie. Instead, we’re going to say to the student: “You can’t do your role as a student right now, the adults upstairs are going to take care of you and, as soon as you’re available, you’ll come back with us and we’ll welcome you with pleasure, because your place is here”. »
The same principle applies to all classes at Le Tremplin school, which can accommodate up to 156 students aged 11 to 21. “If a guy is not well, we don’t want him to go away, we want him to stay,” explains the director.
The young people who stay here are divided into two categories. There are those who are placed to ensure their protection according to the Youth Protection Act. If they are in the rehabilitation centre, an “end of the line” service, it is usually because the other types of placement have not worked out. These young people live in open or intensive supervision units and leave when they turn 18. Some attend the neighborhood school, others go to school on the site, depending on their abilities and needs.
Others are held in closed units following an offense under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. They can stay there until the age of 21, the time to serve their sentence.
In the act of doing good
In 2020, researcher Martin Goyette revealed that barely 25% of young people leaving youth centers hold a high school diploma at the age of 19. He also noted that the schooling of young people was not a priority in these establishments, which should nevertheless use schooling as a lever for rehabilitation. The Laurent commission made essentially the same observations.
For about five years, Le Tremplin school and the Chambly youth center have taken a turn to work in this direction. They enlisted the services of various researchers, including Martin Goyette, to make the transition to a strategy that relies on positive behavior support and a trauma-sensitive approach.
“The sentence to remember is that we want to catch the youngster in the act of doing well,” sums up Valérie Côté, smiling. She specifies that 80% of the work consists in naming the good behaviors of young people, which makes them want to reproduce them.
This paradigm shift has beneficial effects, she notes. The violence has diminished, but more importantly, the number of graduates is multiplying, to the point where she has started to organize graduation ceremonies. Their number went from practically zero to three and then to five per year.
If the director highlights the successes of the new approach, she nevertheless recognizes that all is not perfect. And his biggest challenge is to find a way to bring back some young people who had already dropped out of school or who were accumulating absences before arriving at the center. “I have young people who don’t want to go downstairs, they want to sleep, they try to avoid difficult subjects, so we find strategies to bring them back into their role as learners,” she explains.
Andrée-France, educator in a class of young offenders, notes that these “school refusals” often coincide with difficult events that occur in the lives of young people: bad news from the family, a trip to court, an evaluation in the unit , etc. “They go through so many difficult things that I too, sometimes, would stay in bed rather than come and face my difficulties. »