Elspeth McKay in the re:Purpose store at 150 Gloucester St, Ottawa.

I recently visited the Gloucester St. office of Elspeth McKay, director of Operation Come Home to talk about her work with street-involved youth in Ottawa. We spoke extensively about Elspeth’s knack for developing enterprises that train and employ youth. We also discussed the origins of many OCH programs including Reunite; the Resources (Drop-in) Centre; the Rogers Achievement Centre high school program; BottleWorks; FarmWorks; Housing Works; Entrepreneurship Works; and the re: Purpose store.

To hear the complete interview use the player below, or click HERE to download.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: In the course of the conversation I enthused about the work of Vancouver doctors Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld, co-authors of the provocative book Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. You can go here and here to find long-form presentations by Maté and Neufeld respectively. I also made reference to John Carpenter’s Orwellian classic They Live (1988), and for as long as it’s up I give you this darkly entertaining clip. Elspeth mentions the poem by OHC alum Stephanie, which you can see acted out by OCH youth in this video.

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Thanks for your interest,