Soul Space Ottawa

About Soul Space Ottawa

Soul Space is a collective of community members and frontline workers that organize and host retreats, workshops and café socials to support the mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of frontline street health, harm reduction, community and social service workers in Ottawa. Soul Space is supported by the community of faith at First United Church in Ottawa, but is not a religious endeavour. Our mission is to attend to the spirits of frontline workers through supportive activities and practices to prevent and help heal from compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and burnout resulting from frontline work. Soul Space activities are guided by a Frontline Worker Advisory Group to ensure that offerings are relevant and timely in order to meet the diverse needs and preferences of frontline workers. The Soul Space Steering Committee ensures the safety of participants and financial accountability to donors and funders. Our goal is to offer supports to organizations that employ frontline workers who care for people in Ottawa who are experiencing poverty, homelessness, complex substance use and mental health issues. We support organizations by organizing low-barrier retreats, workshops and other supportive services. We offer cafés and workshops directly to individual frontline workers at little to no direct cost, and retreats on a 'pay-what-you-can' basis. We acknowledge that our work is done on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People, who have lived on the land, now called Ottawa, since time immemorial. We commit to honouring an approach of cultural humility and recognize that reconciliation and decolonization are not metaphors, but actions that require an ongoing and unwavering commitment to social justice and equity.

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