In merely six months, a new hire at the library has made a massive difference both at the library and for the local teen community.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we sat down with Katelyn Bernath, co-ordinator of teen services and outreach at the Collingwood Public Library.
Q: What is your background?
A: I was a teacher in my previous life (laughs). I worked in libraries for about 10 to 15 years working with children and then with teens at the Innisfil Public Library. I started here six months ago.
Q: Where did you go to school?
A: I have a degree to teach Montessori, JK through Grade 6.
Q: What drew you toward this kind of work, away from working with younger kids and toward working with teens?
A: I think that it’s a challenge. Little children are just drawn to everyone and love everyone and are so enthusiastic all the time, which is wonderful, especially in libraries. Working with teens is a little bit harder. They’re tougher nuts to crack, but I think they’re the age group that needs that adult figure the most.
Q: Why did you transition from children’s programs to teen programs?
A: I started the teen program (in Innisfil). They didn’t offer any programs for teens. This was about a year and a half ago.
Q: Is there anything you can point to that you did while in Innisfil that you’re really proud of?
A: Just the fact that I started having teens come in to the library to use library programs. There was nothing when I started there. I started with a little Friday drop-in program and we would get 10 to 20 kids coming after school on Fridays, so it was good!
Q: What are the differences or similarities between communities? (Innisfil and Collingwood)
A: Collingwood youth have more challenges. At least the ones I was interacting with (in Innisfil). Most of them were your typical high school students trying to earn their community service hours.
Here, we have a lot of youth that are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless. They have no food, no resources. They are trying to finish school through correspondence or through the Learning Centre and just need that support and a place to go.
Q: What do you think causes that?
A: It’s hard to say. I don’t know if it’s just the nature of Collingwood being kind of a vacation or seasonal town, making it harder to find good employment. I know our housing situation is really expensive for youth... so if they’ve had a hard time with their parents or been kicked out, it’s not like they can go rent a basement apartment for $800 a month. It’s not an option, because everything’s so expensive. That creates that cycle of, not being able to keep a job because you’re tired and grumpy and hungry and you don’t do a good job at work, and then you get fired and it just continues.
Q: That rolls into my next question: What are some of the challenges of working here?
A: I think a lot of the youth that use the library -- I think I came in here with rose-coloured glasses on -- are not the typical youth that might use the library. There are teens who study here and volunteer here who are wonderful, but the community I deal with the most are the challenging teens who need help.
Q: Are there any teens who come here regularly who you’ve been able to see a difference in during the six months you’ve been here?
A: The first big program I did here had a big impact. We did Cycle into Summer in June. We partnered with the OPP and the Healthy Kids Community Challenge. Thirteen kids signed up and they came and did a workshop on how to repair a bike, they were also given a bike, a helmet and a free lunch. Those were kids who used the bikes to get to job interviews. There’s ones I see in the bikes racks everyday because the kids are riding them to and from work. I think that was a really cool, big impact.
Last month we had a meeting, I invited a bunch of organizations in Collingwood, 15 were invited to come to the library and do a meet and greet. It was open to any group in the area who works with teen services and we were able to all meet face to face. We had representatives from Home Horizons, Collingwood Youth Centre... all of those organizations came together and agreed to meet monthly (going forward) to try to work on cleaning up some of the problems youth are facing in Collingwood. That was kind of a big one.
Right when I started there was a homeless young lady... I was not able to get her into housing. There was nothing available for her. The next day I called Youth Haven out of Barrie and they agreed to send an outreach worker. She (Kim) now works out of the library here on Mondays. That was a great new partnership.
Kim just let me know that since she started here she’s helped 61 youth. That means, providing help with housing, providing emergency access to things like clothing, food, water...
Q: How long ago did Kim start coming here?
A: She started in June.
Q: So only four months, helping 61 people?
A: Yes.
Q: Are there any misconceptions about your job that you’d like to correct?
A: I think that people think that someone who works in a library just sits and orders books and helps on the computer and answers reference questions, and we do all of those things, but there’s this whole other side to working in this library in particular that involves being really connected in the community. I think, maybe other libraries aren’t as forward thinking as the library is here.
The big group of youth that use the library that hang out here... there’s this big misconception that there’s trouble being caused or that they’re up to no good. Most of the kids that are here are lovely. The biggest thing that I’ve noticed is, I’ll be sitting at my desk and there may be seniors on the computer who don’t know how to do something. One of the young guys will jump up off the couch and run over to help. It’s really cool when those things happen, when these teens who may look stereotypically scary just pop up to help, all the time.
Q: Why did you make the decision to come work at the Collingwood Public Library?
A: I knew it would be a challenge. I had heard through other librarians what Collingwood’s teen services were all about. I was excited about it.
Q: Do you ever miss being a teacher?
A: I never look back (laughs). I love this. I’ll be here a long time.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every Saturday. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
