Another YIP year is quickly coming to an end. It has been another different year as we have alternated between being in person and being online for our Faith Formation and leadership sessions.
We offered our interns the option of joining us in person or joining virtually for our sessions trying to be as inclusive to as many of the interns as possible. Our primary goal always is to build community and create a feeling of belonging.
Our interns have been enjoying learning and working in a variety of different placements that have included: Ottawa Art Therapy Group, Enriched Support Program at Carleton University, YIP’s faith formation and leadership team, Centre 454, Starwood, L’Arche, Glebe Wellness Centre, the Synod Office and the Nations Planning team of CLAY.
We welcomed facilitators to discuss unconscious bias, anti- racism, mental health, developing critical thinking skills, 2SLGBTQ+ & gender diversity, and basic financial literacy for our leadership skills development and still have navigating difficult conversation, understanding empathy and networking left to learn about. We will be offering SafeTALK (SafeTALK is learning how to prevent suicide by recognizing signs, engaging someone, and connecting those to an intervention resource for further support. Funding for this comes to us courtesy of the Johanniter Humanitarian Group.
We have met monthly to discuss our faith and our own faith expressions and journeys with our faith formation team. Together our participants learn to be a part of a community, journeying together in faith; learning how they each respond to God in a way and context that is truly their own. They explore concepts and engaged in transformative conversations that are amazingly wonderfully to be a part of.
We are planning a weekend retreat in June for the interns and mentors at Gracefield Camp for more opportunities for connecting, relationship building and engaging about faith. It is our hope that Bishop Shane may be able to join us for a few hours to engage with the interns and respond to their ‘burning questions.’
Look for more about our 2021-2022 interns and some reflections from them on their experiences in the September issue of Crosstalk.
Applications are open for the new YIP year; September 2022-June 2023. The form is available at the diocesan website:
https://www.ottawa.anglican.ca/images/yip/YIP-application.pdf
To watch the new YIP video, please go to:
We are always looking for people to participate in YIP, young people to be interns, people to be a part of our prayer team and people to mentor our young people. If you think you might be interested in being a part of YIP or you think that your parish could offer an opportunity for an intern to do a work placement, I would love to talk to you; we could Zoom, chat on the phone or email.
http://www.ottawa.anglican.ca/index.php/yip
Donna Rourke may be reached at
613-612-3674 or 232-7124 Ext. 220
St. John, Antrim — Deanery of the Southwest