‘The Village Extends Beyond Us’: Claremont Youth Drop-In Center Provides Model

By Roberta Baker
THE LACONIA DAILY SUN
CLAREMONT — In a world dimmed by dead ends and dying hope, the Claremont Learning Partnership shines like a beacon. The only hint of what waits in a clapboard building at the corner of Main Street and Elm is an outdoor deck brimming with toys and giggles, where at-risk little ones play.

It’s a small invitation to the cornucopia inside: A drop-in center for middle and high school students, a shelter with six bedrooms for 16- to 21-year-olds who don’t have a safe place to live, and day care with music, books and playtime treasures for infants, toddlers and preschoolers referred by social services — including the children of high school students and homeless youth.

It’s a mini metropolis of caring, making better days happen for a population that can’t afford to wait.

“I don’t know of any other place that has so many services under one roof. We all share the same mission and goals. We want these families to be successful and healthy,” said Cathy Pellerin, director of the Claremont Learning Partnership, a compendium of services that began in 2017 as a playroom at a homeless shelter. In five years, CLP has grown to 14 employees, five who work at Oasis, the youth shelter, or the drop-in center.

Before school starts, the drop-in center is on track to move upstairs to a dedicated space with a kitchen, pantry, couches, tables, computers and television — with Thrive Youth Recovery at one end, and a Good Neighbors medical team from Dartmouth Health at the other, offering pregnancy and medical testing. Future plans call for a charter school on the third floor that will serve teenage parents, whose children will be cared for in the rooms below — and more living quarters for young people experiencing homelessness in a building nearby.

Last summer, CLP bought its three-story, 24,116-square-foot building for $301,000. Roughly $624,000 in upfront costs and renovations were shouldered by a patchwork of community block grants, federal relief funds, local fundraisers and private and business donations. The Claremont School District was an early financial supporter, and the Claremont Chamber of Commerce stepped up with a bounty of donations in kind.

Local organizations provide furniture, clothing and household supplies. The Claremont Elks Club created and outfitted a playroom and bedroom. The WIC program comes Tuesdays with baby formula and breastfeeding support. Connected Families NH provides case management for individuals and families, which include young adults who have grown up in residential schools and treatment centers, who need coaching now on how to live on their own.

Pellerin, a former kindergarten teacher and homeless liaison officer for the Claremont School District, heads a wraparound program that other New Hampshire cities and towns are watching. “We hear this often: ‘Nobody else is doing it.’ So it’s about time that somebody does,” she said. “We help [youth] build connections so they always have someone they can count on. They have a village.”

A compendium of support, when housing and mental health help are hard to find

At a time when mental health, substance misuse and housing are high priorities across the country, CLP is both a haven and launching pad. Throughout New Hampshire, housing and mental health services are in critically short supply, wait lists for counseling can be three months or longer in some places, and apartments remain financially out of reach for young adults with little or no income or credit history.

“We are the only independent youth living home in New Hampshire that houses the 16- to 18-year-old population,” said Pellerin. “There are no other dedicated youth recovery programs on this side of New Hampshire.” The Seacoast has the state’s only other one, she said, and there “are pieces and parts” that offer similar services. The closest youth homeless shelter with childcare to Claremont is located in Massachusetts.

CLP is a model for communities statewide — including Laconia, a city of just under 17,000, where 78 homeless children were counted this year, and where advocates hope to create a drop-in center for all middle and high school students — a need spotlighted this spring.

At CLP, “We can house them, feed them, clothe them and school them,” said Pellerin. With financial help from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, CLP hopes to add on-site counseling from Counseling Associates in Claremont. On-site mental health care — “that’s the only component for the most at-risk youth that we’re missing,” she said. “All schools need a counselor, and we need that mental health presence here.”

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research from 2020 cited by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in six children ages 6 to 17 experience a mental health disorder each year and 50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24 — which underscores the need to intervene early and effectively. Rates of depression in youth have been found to be higher in rural areas, in females and in LGBTQ youth, according to a report released last month from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The stress and isolation of COVID deepened the social and emotional struggles of young people and intensified a universal problem had been brewing before the pandemic ushered in new levels of isolation and disconnection, according to mental health experts. In general, youth mental health improved after students returned to in-person classes, school counselors report. But many who work with children in schools and other settings believe youth anxiety and depression remain much more widespread than reported or diagnosed.

Families and organizations and institutions that serve them are trying to figure out the best ways to help proactively, by increasing supports for young people where they live. And youth drop-in centers, which increase connections to peers and adult role models, are an important part of that plan.

“The goal of wraparound is to help kids stay in their community and not need residential treatment,” said Laurie Foster, director of child and youth programs at NAMI New Hampshire, which runs Life Under Construction, a collection of social media platforms that help young people ages 14 to 21 reach out to one another, and to relevant resources and support.

“We aren’t the only place in the world with homeless children impacted by trauma,” Pellerin said. “They have all experienced significant trauma in their past. None of them have a healthy family or healthy family relationships to support them through early adulthood. They are eager just to have people in their lives who care.”

CLP offers on-site, peer-to-peer recovery support through a program it designed called Thrive Youth Recovery. At its shelter, which is licensed to house up to 12, drugs and alcohol misuse have affected every guest whether through experimentation or self-medication, or because a family member’s addiction makes it unsafe to live at home. The peer support program is designed specifically for children under 18, but it applies broadly to young people.

“Having kids support kids is ginormous. They would rather talk to someone their own age or older. They have that common bond,” Pellerin said. “When we bring them into the shelter space, we’re not preaching recovery — or anything. We’re having organic conversations about trauma, real and now, or in the past,” including what happens in families and in boyfriend and girlfriend relationships.

Until the drop-in center moves upstairs, it occupies the living, dining and activity areas that also serve shelter guests. There are two kitchens — one accessible for those with physical disabilities, a large sofa and a long table that comfortably seats six to eight. Congregate dinners, which are served twice a week, are prepped and cooked, with assistance from staff, by residents and youth who stop by, sometimes just to talk or to have a place to be other than school or home. Six to 12 come between the hours of 2 and 6 p.m. and can stay for meals or take out. Some collect food for younger siblings they care for, and for parents with health or substance use challenges. Conversations are spontaneous and informal. Kids talk about school and teachers, home or family — including the latest stressful or disturbing event. It’s not unusual for one to blurt out that a parent is in the hospital because he or she has just overdosed, said Pellerin. “To them it’s normal-ish.”

The center also offers classes in cooking, painting, yoga, coaching in life skills and self-care, computers, a food pantry, access to donated clothing, and help with schoolwork.

A youth drop-in center for the City on the Lakes

Leaders and friends of the Laconia Youth Alliance hope to create a similar youth drop-in center here — a safe, walk-able place for teens to gather, have fun, and get help.

Ashley Sullivan, coordinator of the Laconia Youth Alliance, leads youth groups at Laconia Middle School and High School, and belongs to a team of stakeholders who want to see a youth drop-in center established downtown. Based on surveys, conversations, and comments voiced during the youth VOICES project in March, they “need a safe place to just be themselves. They need to be where they can get food, make smart choices and be safe — not hanging around parking lots, getting into trouble.”

The group hopes to prepare a proposal to present to funders, local legislators and the city council by the end of this year, and the project is still very much in the planning stage, said Kimbly Wade, director of prevention services at the Partnership for Public Health. “We want to set it up sooner rather than later because we know the need is urgent. It needs to be sustainable and have community buy-in. If the community doesn’t accept it, nobody’s going to use it. They have to see the benefit.”

Laconia Police Det. Eric Adams advises ACERT teams at police departments around the state on how to connect youth victims of trauma to services in their communities. He was one of the first to advocate for a youth drop-in center here. The idea “stemmed out of just talking to youth and really understanding that their voices matter,” Adams said. For a critical mass, home is neither a refuge nor a supportive place. “If they’re telling us they want an environment they can go to outside of school, why can’t we provide that?”

Adams and Wade envision a centrally-located recreation center where young people can get a meal, do laundry, have a good time, connect with positive adult role models, get help with school work, learn coping skills, and plan and prepare for their for the future. The VOICES event, which assembled young people to share what they were feeling and thinking in the wake of COVID, revealed that “They just don’t have a lot of hope,” said Wade. “It’s really so important for youth to feel connected and valued.”

Now the goal is to rally support for a cause that resonates with civic leaders, young people, educators and many families: a safe place in the city for kids to hang out.

To raise community awareness and interest, “You have to keep talking. You can’t stop. Everybody you talk to, even the Negative Nellies of the world, stay positive and true to your message,” said Pellerin. “Anyone with any connection to youth in the community, we have invited them in” to see firsthand what CLP does.

At the close of the 2021-2022 school year, Claremont, a city of roughly 13,000 on the Vermont border, had 60 children known to be homeless, down from years before the pandemic, when roughly 121 youth were reported to schools as having no permanent address. For that invisible, shifting population, home is a couch, a car, a friend or acquaintance’s house, or a cache of belongings stashed in the woods with a sleeping bag or a jumble of coats and blankets.

To kids who use CLP’s shelter and drop-in center, on-site support and easy access are key, Pellerin said. “Kids do best with soft hand-off” — a personal, in-person introduction, rather than “a business card with instructions” and a number to call — especially those who are steeped in distress, she said. The shelter and drop-in center become oases where they can find what they need, including peers and responsible adults who hear what they’re saying and get it.

“These kids don’t have a big trust factor,” Pellerin said. “There are not a lot of people they can trust in their lives. We don’t want them to become reliant on us. We want them to know that we’re here, but also that the village extends beyond us.”

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.