Sherbourne Health PrideHacks Project: SOY Program Tech Update

Sherbourne Health’s “Supporting Our Youth” (SOY) program is a set of health promotion services and programming centered on supporting the health and well-being goals established by LGBT2SQ youth and young adults, many of whom are homeless, racialized and newcomers to Canada. When the COVID-19 crisis hit, Sherbourne made the difficult but necessary decision to put their SOY programs on hold until they could find a safe and effective way to serve their group participants.

This project aims to create a multipurpose and effective manner of providing virtual support to group participants while removing technological barriers to youth who are marginalized. This project centers primarily around finding innovative and low cost hardware solutions and alternatives to allow all beneficiaries of SOY’s programs the ability to access their services, as many do not have access to reliable internet or a smartphone.

This project will aim to examine and assess different technological approaches to better serve SOY’s clients online. The end goal is to develop and expand online platforms for SOY programs as well create a project plan that will allow them to better engage all of their clients including those who face technological barriers.

Expertise Required: familiarity with hardware (modems, wireless boxes, feature phones, etc), tech consulting, project management, IT.

Language: English