Bainbridge Islanders can avail themselves of two new resources. One is the Resource Guide for Bainbridge Island Teens and Tweens. The other is How to Get Help in Kitsap County.
The Resource Guide is the outcome of a partnership among the Bainbridge Island Rotary Club, the Bainbridge branch of Kitsap Regional Library, and the Bainbridge Island Healthy Youth Initiative. The introduction reads as follows:
Our youth are Bainbridge Island’s most precious resource. While we offer excellent schools, safe streets, natural beauty, and relative affluence, recent surveys show there is more we can do as a community to support their full growth and development. In the three Bainbridge Healthy Youth Summits held in 2013 -2014, our youth identified three ways we can help them grow: 1) empower their voices, 2) help them discover their passions and 3) celebrate them for who they are in addition to what they do and achieve. With these sentiments in mind, we decided to query all island non-profits to discover what opportunities existed for youth to find a way to share their voices and gifts, discover their passions and foster internal strengths that don’t show up on a report card.
The guide is a listing of programs, services, and teen and tween volunteer opportunities. The 30 listed resources range in type from Salish Sea Expeditions to Coffee Oasis to Teen Talking Circles.
For example, the Helpline House listing includes the organization’s address and phone number and the e-mail address of a Helpline House clinical social worker. It identifies as programs “Community Service After School and Summer of Service and Holiday volunteering for teens. Independent Community Projects such as neighborhood or grocery store food drives for teens and tweens.” For services it lists “Food bank and clothing barn. We also do scholarship assessment for park district and various local sports clubs. We provide backpacks and school supplies through Project Backpack.” And under volunteer opportunities, it lists “Sorting, stocking and processing donated food items in the food bank. Selecting, sorting and displaying clothes in Clothing Work.”
You can open the resource guide here.
How to Get Help is a brochure for people dealing with mental illness. It was developed by the Bainbridge Island Police Department, which has shared it with law enforcement agencies throughout the area at their request.
Officer Trevor Ziemba, who is Bainbridge’s first certified Crisis Intervention Officer and who was nominated for State CIO of the Year, recognized the need for this brochure. He said that, during police responses, people would tell him they didn’t know how to help their mentally ill family members. So Ziemba led the creation of the brochure that Chief Hamner has called “one of our biggest hits for the year.”
How to Get Help reports that “1 in 5 families are affected by a mental health issue.” It offers a list of resources for children, teens, young adults, adults, older adults, families, and veterans that people can reach out to during crisis. It also list resources for dealing with substance abuse and gives instructions for immediate responses during an emergency. The handout includes a place for people to record the names of their local CIOs and to record the name of the officer and the number of the police report related to a mental health incident.
You can pick up a copy of How to Get Help at the Bainbridge Island Police station.
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