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Archive for the ‘Program Updates’ Category

Providing support through our Senior Socialization program

Posted on: February 1st, 2024 by Nellie's No Comments

seniorsprogram-ripleysLaunched in November 2022, the Senior Socialization program at Nellie’s is one of the newest ways that we’re continuing to look outside our shelter walls and be a force for change in our community. The program was born out of a need to provide further support and connection for the seniors living in our community, most of whom we connected with through our food program. Amanda Nobile, our Community Support & Outreach program coordinator who runs the food program, began to notice that many of the older women who were visiting our food program every week were very lonely and isolated — a situation that worsened with the pandemic.

“We noticed that even though the food program doesn’t open until 12:30pm, a lot of them would come by around 10am to just hang out,” says Amanda. “It became a place for them to socialize with each other and make some friends in their community. So we wanted to expand on that because we saw that it was definitely a need for them.”

From there, the Nellie’s team applied to, and ultimately received funding from, a New Horizons for Seniors grant, which aims to promote healthy aging through the development of community supports for seniors. Our goal is to increase both educational and social programming for seniors to reduce social isolation.

The true highlight of the program has been group trips to Toronto attractions, such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Ripley’s Aquarium. “We’ve done quite a few trips now, and they’ve been received so well — the seniors love them!” says Amanda. “I wish I could run them way more often, and every week have somewhere to go, but they’re definitely a lot of work to plan, and it’s hard to get affordable tickets.” We’re incredibly thankful to the ROM, the AGO, and Ripley’s, all of whom have given us either free or heavily discounted tickets.

“I like to pick places where we’re not just socializing and going to have a coffee, but we’re going somewhere that our clients typically wouldn’t be able to afford,” explains Amanda. “A lot of these people have lived in Toronto for their whole lives, and many of them are immigrants who came to Toronto and have lived here for the past 20-30 years, and they’ve never been able to visit these major Toronto attractions because they can’t afford it.”

Amanda explains that typically the group will do a one-hour tour together, and then if they want to stay and explore the rest of the attraction, they can do so on their own or in smaller groups or pairings. “It’s really sweet to see them pair off with someone that they just met, and ask if they want to go to an exhibit together, or go grab a coffee, or travel back to the east end together,” says Amanda. “They start pairing off and making friends, which is the whole point of the program. Seeing that actually work has been really heartwarming.”

The educational part of the program focuses on digital literacy, which originated as group workshops and has now transitioned into private or semi-private tutoring sessions, where senior women can bring their device and get all their questions answered in a supportive environment. “This has been even more impactful than the more broad workshops,” explains Amanda. “We’ve had seniors that love it and keep coming back, and they’re super excited to have this space where they can expand their learning opportunities.”

Another element of the program has been a bi-weekly yoga class, run by an amazing teacher named Kristen who has volunteered her time as an instructor. A core group of approximately 20 participants attend each session, where they focus on breathwork and light stretching in a very mindful practice catered to the seniors’ abilities.

As the Senior Socialization program expands, Amanda plans to still feature special trips, but she’s also hoping to start up a weekly or bi-weekly seniors drop-in, providing the women with somewhere to go on a regular basis to meet people and socialize more often. These drop-in meetings would also allow Nellie’s to meet more of the community’s needs, by bringing in experts or hosting sessions that they specifically request, such as a financial expert during tax season, or running a games day or a movie night.

“The participants are always asking me: ‘what’s the next thing? When can we get together again?’” explains Amanda. “I want to be able to provide them with a space where they can come if they have any issues or just want to meet new friends, and we will do our best to be able to provide that through the drop-in program.”

Introducing our new substance use and addiction program

Posted on: October 26th, 2023 by Nellie's No Comments

IMG-20231012-WA0005As we work toward a future free of gender-based violence, here at Nellie’s we’ve been working to build new ways for us to better support our community of women and their children fleeing violence, trauma, and homelessness. And thanks to a financial contribution from Health Canada, we’re currently developing a brand-new substance use program to provide even more women with the help they need.

There’s a major intersectionality between substance use and violence against women — an average of 63% of women seeking assistance with violence issues are also struggling with substance abuse. Many women in addiction recovery also report experiencing some form of abuse in their lifetime. But until now, there’s been a lack of holistic support for women in need of both of these services.

Enter our new substance use program, which aims to increase the knowledge of and build additional capacity for harm reduction services within violence against women shelters. Toni-Ann Allen, Nellie’s Substance Use and Addictions supervisor, has been tasked with creating this expansive program, which she recently launched with a presentation to the Violence Against Women Network (VAWN) about how the program will be integrated across all women’s shelters within VAWN.

Although the program is being developed at Nellie’s, the goal is to create a standardized practice within all VAWN women’s shelters to address and support individuals who are experiencing both gender-based violence and substance abuse. Toni-Ann is working on building this program from scratch, and she’s currently in the research stage and working on building out the assessment framework. “The assessments will help us evaluate and see where each organization is currently at with substance use, addictions, and harm reduction within their shelter,” explains Toni-Ann. “Once all the assessments are finished, I’ll take all the information and then give each shelter feedback.” Working alongside Toni-Ann are peer volunteers who have lived experience with gender-based violence or substance use — they’ll be providing feedback on all steps of the process, as well as joining Toni-Ann on the in-shelter assessments starting in January.

After Toni-Ann and her team finish completing the assessments and providing feedback, the next step will be to provide essential training to frontline shelter workers to help them better support their shelter residents. “Because of this intersectionality [of women experiencing substance use and gender-based violence], we’re finding that individuals aren’t accessing services as they should, and it’s creating barriers for women,” says Toni-Ann. “We want to bridge that gap and prepare the workers and VAW shelters to deal with this complex issue.”

Another element of the program that Toni-Ann is looking forward to exploring is how nutrition can be used as a form of harm reduction. “I don’t believe there’s enough conversation around nutrition and how it helps individuals who use substances, wherever they may be in their journey,” explains Toni-Ann. “From a community standpoint and a harm reduction standpoint, I haven’t seen that — so that’s really exciting.”

We’re proud to be starting this innovative and transformative program, and we’re eager to soon be supporting the women at Nellie’s even more effectively. Our goal is that the impact of this program goes far beyond the direct support we provide to our clients — it’s also about challenging the stigma surrounding substance use and harm reduction. “I think it will change a lot within the community, and I think it will change perceptions on harm reduction and substance abuse,” says Toni-Ann.

A message from Executive Director Jyoti Singh

Posted on: January 24th, 2023 by Nellie's No Comments

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It’s been a year now since we moved into our new shelter building and being in this space has given us so many opportunities to enhance the work we do with the women and their children who need us.

We went from an 8,900 sq. ft shelter that had only nine bedrooms for 36 beds, to a 21,800 sq. ft building with 22 bedrooms for up to 40 beds. More than just more bedrooms, the new shelter gives us more program space, more living space, more dining space, more play space for kids, more quiet space, and more space to unify our staff under one roof, allowing us to better communicate needs and brainstorm new and innovative approaches to trauma support and violence prevention.

Through our Transitional Housing Program, we continue to focus on finding ways to move women and their children out of the shelter and into safe, affordable housing, faster. Because while we make every effort to ensure our shelter feels like home, it is, after all, still a temporary living arrangement and our goal is to continue reducing average stay times. Over the past year, the average stay was 76 days.

We also continue to focus on delivering prevention programs that disrupt the cycle of violence. Last year, some of our staff were trained to run PAVE Prevention for women and Rock and Water for children and youth. PAVE Prevention (Proactive Anti-Violence Education) is about empowerment and Rock and Water is a world-renowned violence prevention program.

Finding ways to do more and offer more in our new space is always our top priority despite the fact that our operating costs of being in a bigger shelter are greater, especially with rising inflation rates. It’s because of your generous support that in-shelter supportive programs and violence prevention programs for women and their children are possible. Their impact, however, go beyond our shelter walls.

If the pandemic has highlighted anything, it’s that gender-based violence is still prevalent in our society. Nellie’s has long been known as a crisis organization for women escaping violence but, as we become a formative force in addressing violence, we are becoming a leader in reducing it. PAVE Prevention teachings will soon be a part of all of our Community Outreach and Support programs for women living in our community, and a variation of Rock and Water is being introduced in four schools across the GTA. We hope that many more will soon be lining up for a chance to have Rock and Water taught to their students.

Bringing these ground-breaking programs beyond our shelter walls and into the community is how we will stem the flow of violence on a systemic level. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2023, the idea is that by the time Nellie’s celebrates 100 years, there will be less of a need for us as a crisis organization.

Thank you for your ongoing and continuing support; it is what makes everything we do possible.

 

Jyoti Singh
Executive Director

How Nellie’s is helping to fight food insecurity in Toronto

Posted on: October 25th, 2022 by Nellie's No Comments

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No doubt you’ve experienced some sticker shock at the grocery store recently — according to new data released in October by Statistics Canada, food inflation has soared to a 41-year high in Canada. Grocery prices just keep climbing, rising by 11.4 per cent year-over-year, while hourly wages rose by only 5.2 per cent. And when you combine the increasing inflation with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not surprising that more Canadians are facing food insecurity than ever before.

According to the Canada’s Invisible Food Network report released by Second Harvest, 6.7 million Canadians relied on food charities in 2021. That’s equal to 18% of Canadians, or roughly the population of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan combined.

Here in Toronto, there were 1.45 million visits to Toronto food banks in the last year — the highest number of visits ever recorded in the city — according to the Who’s Hungry report prepared by the Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest. Perhaps the most sobering statistic is that for the first time ever, new clients outnumbered existing clients at Toronto food banks with a 61 per cent increase compared to the year prior.

At Nellie’s, we’ve seen the demand for our food program continue to grow throughout the pandemic. In fact, the need has been so great that despite having to temporarily suspend many of our community programs due to the pandemic, we never closed the doors on our food program. Between 60 to 80 women and families apick up food from our food program every single week, from seniors living below the poverty line, to single moms trying to make ends meet, to women with disabilities who face economic and social exclusion. Some of these women have lived in our shelter, but many others simply live in our community and come to us for help.

Our food program depends on donations from our community, as well as support from our friends at Second Harvest. Every Tuesday morning, the food rescue charity makes a weekly delivery of fresh, frozen, and packaged foods. We never know exactly what we’ll get each week, so we call our food program “Supper Surprise”. From week to week, we fill food baskets with everything from pasta and rice, to fresh fruit and vegetables, to peanut butter and milk. We round out each food basket with stock from our own non-perishable food pantry to ensure that each family receives a healthy mix of protein, canned and boxed goods, and fruits and vegetables.

It’s because of generous donors like you that we’re able to keep that pantry stocked and ready to support our community. Our need for non-perishable food donations continues to grow as the increasing demand persists. Kids’ snacks and cereals are always incredibly helpful to the families who visit Nellie’s, as well as anything that is quick and easy to make into a meal.

Another way you can support our food program is through a monetary donation, which can be used to buy TTC tokens for those who come to the food program. We strongly believe that transportation shouldn’t be a barrier to food access, so we give each woman a token to get home and a token to come back next week.

To make a secure online donation, please visit our donation page. Or, you can make an even bigger impact by becoming a monthly donor. Our regular monthly supporters help us provide critical and consistent funding towards our daily efforts to fight food insecurity in our community, as well as our other essential programs. Automatic monthly payments are easy to set up, convenient, and create a lasting impact on the lives of the women and their children who need us.

Food program helps those in our community fight food insecurity

Posted on: May 25th, 2021 by Nellie's No Comments

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“Nellie’s food program helps keep me off the street”
Every Tuesday at Nellie’s, between 60 and 80 families visit our office to pick up food from our food program. Molly* is always amongst that group. At 70 years old, Molly has experienced multiple challenges throughout her life, including poverty, homelessness, and a stay at Nellie’s shelter a decade ago. Today, she is housed but can only afford to pay her rent or buy food—not both.

“Coming to Nellie’s every week to pick up groceries means I can keep my apartment,” says Molly. “Nellie’s food program helps keep me off the street.”

In Canada, about four million people face some form of food insecurity. The pandemic has only increased that number, as many women and low-income earners have lost their jobs or seen their hours reduced. At Nellie’s food program, we help seniors living below the poverty line, single moms trying to make ends meet, and women with disabilities, who face economic and social exclusion. Like Molly, some lived at Nellie’s shelter, but others simply live in our community and come to us for help.

“No matter what has happened to some of our community programs because of the pandemic, we have not stopped our food program and we won’t stop it because we know how valuable it is,” says Ingrid Graham, Director of Development. “Food banks have seen such an increase in need this past year and if we had more food to give, we would increase the number of people we can help too.”

Every Tuesday morning, a truck rolls up outside our offices from Second Harvest to make its weekly delivery for our food program. The food rescue charity brings a variety of fresh, frozen and packaged foods. We never know exactly what we’ll get every week—hence we call our food program Supper Surprise. Some weeks we may get pasta, rice and an assortment of fresh vegetables. Other weeks it may be processed meats, fresh fruit and yogurts. Other weeks still, it may be peanut butter, milk, prepared salads and crackers. Some weeks we round out each food basket with stock from our own non-perishable food pantry to ensure a good mix of protein, canned and boxed goods and fruits and vegetables.

That pantry is kept stocked thanks to generous donors like you. And, it gets put to use throughout the week as well. From time to time, someone in the community will simply stop by and ask if we have any food to spare.

“This year, more than ever, we’ve asked people to donate non-perishable food so that we can keep that pantry stocked,” says Ingrid, adding that moms are often asking for cereal for their kids and foods they can pack for school lunches. “Anything that is quick and easy to make and that donors can buy relatively cheaply, makes such an impact.”

Another way to support our food program is with a monetary donation, which can be used to buy TTC tokens (yes tokens) for those who come to the food program.

“We are adamant that transportation should not be a barrier to food. To ensure that people can come to Nellie’s, we give each woman a token to get home and a token to come back next week,” says Ingrid.

To make a secure online donation, please visit our donation page. Or, you can make an even bigger impact by becoming a monthly donor. As a regular monthly supporter, your generosity provides critical and consistent funding towards our daily efforts to fight food insecurity in our community, as well as supports all of our other programs. Automatic monthly payments are easy to set up, convenient, and create a lasting impact on the lives of women and their children who need us.

 

New pilot program at Nellie’s Shelter teaches web skills

Posted on: May 31st, 2017 by Nellie's No Comments
Allisha Ali, Developer at Hubba, teaches coding for a pilot program run by Nellie's Shelter. It has partnered with Ladies Learning Code and Hubba to give marginalized women a foot in the tech world by going beyond basic computer skills to offer coding. - Justin Greaves/Metroland

Allisha Ali, Developer at Hubba, teaches coding for a pilot program run by Nellie’s Shelter. It has partnered with Ladies Learning Code and Hubba to give marginalized women a foot in the tech world by going beyond basic computer skills to offer coding. – Justin Greaves/Metroland

For 12 weeks, nine women will take part in a pilot program that will give them the web skills they need to be members of the tech community with the help of Hubba and Ladies Learning Code.

The program is offered through Nellie’s Shelter, an east Toronto community organization committed to providing shelter, education and advocacy for all women and children.

The three organizations have teamed up to offer a computer program teaching relevant computer and web skills to marginalized women at 129 Spadina Ave.

The program, which goes beyond learning computer basics, gives women the chance to learn skills like depth coding, web management tools, website building, HTML and graphic design.

“We’re helping them put viable skills on their resume. We wanted to do what was important for the world today and the future and that goes beyond Word and Excel. Web coding is the new literacy,” said Stephanie Little, the lead co-ordinator for the program from Hubba.

The program, which consists of three-hour classes once a week, is the brainchild of Little, who launched it with the blessing of Hubba’s CEO Ben Zifkin last month. Little said creating the program was always a personal interest of hers and is happy to see the nine women, who wouldn’t be able to enrol in a program like this, be more web literate.

“I think women in the shelter systems and other programs are looking for a fresh start and a lot of them have been through quite a bit and I think what helps with a fresh start is confidence and that’s what we’re helping with, by providing this program.”

Nellie’s Shelter was approached by Hubba, a network where retail buyers can find, post and discover information on different products, to offer the free course. Its program manager Marlene Bell, immediately agreed since she knew how badly the women who use the shelter wanted to learn more advanced computer skills but didn’t have the means to do so.

“We can’t always find computer classes that are free of charge in the city, so clients may have to decide between food and courses,” Bell said.

“And if you have to make that decision, the basic needs come first.”

The program’s curriculum was created by the team at Ladies Learning Code, an organization that helps women and girls develop coding skills from as young as eight years old across the country.

Hubba approached them to develop the curriculum for the program and they were excited to help.

“Our work is about engaging women and youth, but especially for the most under-represented group,” explained Melissa Sariffodeen, the CEO of Ladies Learning Code.

“So we love giving women the chance to be in a tech community and be surrounded by the tech culture and see what their skills can be applied to.”

Participants are given a laptop to use.

“I hope through this program women are able to acquire more marketable skills they can use out in the community. We’re really excited about it,” said Bell.

by Hilary Caton

Hilary Caton is a staff reporter with InsideToronto.com and Metroland Media Toronto. She can be reached at hcaton@insidetoronto.com. Follow the Parkdale Liberty on Twitter and Facebook

WEAV Pre-Employment Workshops

Posted on: September 15th, 2015 by Nellie's No Comments

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Have you experienced or witnessed violence or trauma? Are you just starting to think about getting back to work? We can help! Come experience a group of women working together to support each other and build networks.

 Activities to help you identify the best path for you to find the work you want the most

 Amazing mentoring opportunities

 Many resumé and portfolio building activities

 Build your communication skills, confidence and leadership abilities

 One on One, independent and group activities

 Fun group building activities

This is a 3 day a week program that includes time for you to work and research independently. Not everything will be a classroom setting.

Program starts October 14, 2015 and runs until April 28, 2016 Classes are every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9:30 am — 2:30 pm

To apply please contact Anna Morgan at anna@nellies.org or call 416-461-0980 Tokens provided when necessary. This program is for women identified participants

Women’s Outreach Programs – February 2015

Posted on: February 8th, 2015 by Nellie's No Comments

 

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FEBRUARY 10

  • Supper Surprise,  2 pm – 4 pm, supplies are limited so please contact us ahead of time to pre-register for this Program

FEBRUARY 12

  • Police Report Forum, 10.30 am – 12 noon, 754 Queen St East

FEBRUARY 17

  • Supper Surprise, 2 pm – 4 pm, supplies are limited so please contact us ahead of time to pre-register for this Program

FEBRUARY 19

  • Police Violence, 10. 30 am – 12.00 noon, 754 Queen St East

FEBRUARY 24

  • Supper Surprise, 2 pm – 4 pm, supplies are limited so please contact us ahead of time to pre-register for this Program

FEBRUARY 26

  • Employment Law, 10.30 am – 12 noon, 754 Queen St East

For more information please call 416-461-2052 or email adriana@nellies.org

Harm Reduction Workshop

Posted on: April 30th, 2014 by Nellie's No Comments

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Thank you to the trainers from South Riverdale COUNTERfit Harm Reduction Program, from left, Rhiannon, Mona & Debbie for giving a wonderful full day workshop to Nellie’s staff on “Women and Harm Reduction Workshop” on  April 28, 2014.

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Thank you to all of Nellie’s staff who attended the COUNTERfit Harm Reduction Program workshop!

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Women Experiencing Abuse and Violence (WEAV) 2014

Posted on: April 24th, 2014 by Nellie's No Comments

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On April 2, 2014, Nellie’s began the Women Experiencing Abuse and Violence (WEAV) group. The group will run every Wednesday for 12 weeks at our Community Support and Outreach Office.

The first week began by having women discuss their own goals in attending the group. One goal that many women identified was developing the tools for self-empowerment and to improve self-esteem and self-confidence. The participants also wanted to learn about healthy relationships and recognizing signs of an abusive relationship. The participants of the group also spoke about the importance of gaining support from other women who have gone through similar experiences. One woman stated that attending the group means, “knowing I am not alone and finding strength in leaning on each other.”

Week 2 of WEAV addressed systemic forms of violence and how society is shaped by patriarchal social relations as well as by racism and oppression based on class, age, sexual orientation, disability, gender identification, place of origin, religion and record of offences (only to name a few). Participants in the group unpacked how their own experiences are based on fundamentally unequal power structures. For example, participants spoke about the unfair pressure on women to “have it all”, be seen as objects and one woman stated “I now see that no one can tell me I need to do all the chores because I am a woman, it should be 50/50.”

Week 3 explored the topic of different forms of abuse that goes beyond thinking of abuse as being only physical abuse. The different types of abuse participants named were: psychological abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, using children, social abuse, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, cultural abuse, intellectual abuse and financial abuse. Participants in the group related to experiencing most of the different forms of abuse that were discussed. Participants spoke about not recognizing the different types of abuse when in the relationship, but how important it was to see their experience reflected in this activity and to see all the different forms of abuse they experienced validated.