Moose Jaw youth centre keeping teens engaged during COVID-19 lockdown

While splash parks and playgrounds are exciting for kids, teens have been left waiting for more age-appropriate entertainment options to reopen.

In the excitement of the slow reopening of Saskatchewan life, some worry teenagers are being forgotten.

One youth drop-in centre in Moose Jaw, however, isn’t going to let teens fall through the cracks.

Although Joe’s Place has been closed since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it hasn’t stopped offering exciting events and challenges for local teens.

Joe’s Place Youth Centre in Moose Jaw. (Libby Giesbrecht/980 CJME)

“We just knew how tough this would be on the youth of our city,” said Joe Dueck, founder and executive director of Joe’s Place Youth Centre. “We wanted them to know they would not be alone in this.”

Joe’s Place started with a vision in Dueck’s mind to give kids a place to just hang out.

The now-popular Moose Jaw youth centre began in Dueck’s apartment when he was a teen himself.

“I was a troubled teen myself,” Dueck said.

After attending Briercrest College in Caronport and doing a peacekeeping tour in Bosnia as part of the armed forces, Dueck said he developed a new perspective.

“I just started inviting other youth that I had met to come hang out. I said no booze, no drugs and soon, 100 of my peers were showing up and hanging out on the weekend nights, sober,” Dueck recalled.

“We realized this was a really important thing.”

Dueck has been creating a safe space for local youth to hang out and have fun since 1993.

Equipped with a dance floor, arcade, workshop and commercial kitchen, Joe’s Place is the place for local youth to spend their Friday nights.

Teens have the chance to hang out, develop work skills, and learn skills like woodworking, movie-making and photography in a safe and sober environment.

It takes more than 100 volunteers and staff members to supervise everything going on at Joe’s Place.

In addition to its weekend drop-in programming, the youth centre also hosts various programs throughout the week, including a small-group supper program and a support group for young mothers.

“(There’s) lots going on here to keep the kids of Moose Jaw busy and help them reach their full potential,” said Dueck, who hopes time at Joe’s Place will help kids develop their own unique gifts and talents and help be a part of making society better.

Youth centre closes doors for pandemic, finds open window

When COVID-19 came, Dueck immediately knew he would have to close the youth centre.

“We knew we couldn’t stay open physically,” Dueck said, “but we knew isolation was going to be really hard for our city’s youth.”

After the last drop-in night on March 7, Dueck and the Joe’s Place team started to brainstorm how they could continue to engage and connect with Moose Jaw’s youth during a global pandemic.

“We immediately said we have to do something. We were determined to offer them something so our whole staff team worked together on this online alternative called the Isolation Olympics,” Dueck said.

The Isolation Olympics — an ongoing series of contests, competitions and fun activities for the youth to engage with online and at home — launched on the youth centre’s Facebook page on March 19.

From photography and create-your-own meme contests to Fortnight tournaments and virtual movie nights, the local teen hotspot has remained active during the pandemic, making sure Moose Jaw youth have a place to go — even if it’s online.

Dueck said the online karaoke, called Social Distance-Sing, is especially popular.

“We knew this was going to be really hard on the youth so we just wanted to make sure we could offer some alternatives,” Dueck said.

The youth centre also contacted local stores, asking for prize donations to award the winners of each contest.

“We were really surprised at the generosity,” Dueck said. “It has been a bit tough (to get sponsors) but people have offered up whatever they’re good at … and it’s been very encouraging to see.”

Dueck said he has especially enjoyed seeing the art contest entries.

“There’s such a varied amount of entries for an art contest so you get to see the graphic design and you get to see some sculpting … I love to see their artistic talents coming out,” he said

Centre responding to youth in crisis

All sorts of options to keep teens active were forced to shut down due to COVID-19.

“They lost a lot of things so quickly, their sports and their drama and their music festivals … and this is definitely not the grad they dreamed of,” Dueck explained. “It’s been really rough on our teens.”

The youth centre founder was especially worried about kids stuck in less-than-ideal home situations and struggling with mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.

On the online discord server created by the youth centre to host competitions and activities, Joe’s Place staff and volunteers are also able to connect one on one with kids at home to check in on their physical and mental health.

“That’s been really important,” Dueck said, “to ensure there’s always something for them to do but also that there’s someone available to listen to them.”

Dueck said several youth have reached out to ask for help during the pandemic.

“We’ve been able to mainly just listen … let them know that they’re not alone, that we’re all in this together,” Dueck said. “We’ve had some opportunities to encourage youth and counsel them, some who are really struggling in these dark times.”

Recently, Joe’s Place added a qualified counsellor on the server who can be contacted when conversations go beyond the capabilities of a volunteer or staff member.

The number of youth needing this kind of help has significantly increased during COVID-19, Dueck said.

“These have just been such uncertain times and youth who might already have been struggling with depression or anxiety … now they’re stuck at home in maybe not an ideal situation and just frustrated,” Dueck said.

“There’s been a lot of youth that have been struggling.”

A slow return to a new normal

The online server is also being used for some exciting group activities.

Alexis has been one of several Moose Jaw youth learning to play the ukulele through online lessons offered by Joe’s Place Youth Centre in Moose Jaw during COVID-19. (Joe’s Place Youth Centre/Submitted)

Youths have been gathering online together for weekly movie nights. To make those evenings extra special, Family Pizza in Moose Jaw has delivered free pizza parties to five youth each week.

Dueck estimated the restaurant has donated nearly $1,300 worth of pizza so far.

Online fitness classes and ukulele lessons have also allowed local youths a chance to develop a new skill or hobby while in isolation. These classes have recently started to transition to a socially distanced outdoor setting.

“We actually get to start doing some small group social distancing face to face from a distance outdoors,” Dueck said.

The youth centre is planning for a number of day trips and small outdoor gatherings throughout the summer, when teens will be able to reconnect with friends in person while hiking, biking, fishing and kayaking.

“No amount of Zoom can replace meeting with a real, live person,” Dueck said.