Good afternoon, all. Thank you for this honour.
We've been working with youth for the past 14 years. We started out as foster parents initially, and based on the gaps in services and the different things that we saw were needed, we created the Pathfinder Youth Centre Society. It is a non-profit charitable organization that works with at-risk youth, youth in care with the ministry, and youth with different cognitive disabilities.
We then branched out to working with Community Living British Columbia, CLBC, which is an organization that funds individuals who have an IQ of lower than 70 and, obviously, a lot of mental challenges. Some of them are in their fifties or sixties chronologically, but they're basically 10 to 18 years of age. That's the demographic we've dealt with, and we're noticing with the programs we run that there's a large increase in that population.
We service Vancouver, obviously, and the Lower Mainland, and we have an office, or a centre, in Maple Ridge. It's good to see a familiar face from Maple Ridge here. We also service Surrey, where our second location is.
The body of our discussion will be based on the youth who we've worked with and their journey. The challenges we face are the multiple barriers for youth, as well as dual diagnosis, and the most common disabilities we face with a lot of the intakes that we do are anxiety, depression, and the autism spectrum. Also, we see a lot of drug-entrenched and street-entrenched youth. These challenges raise concerns for future vocational success, as do mental health issues, and it's essential that they get service in terms of searching for, obtaining, and retaining meaningful employment.
With so many youth suffering with mental health problems, it hinders them from being able to develop the social skills required in the workforce, such as interpersonal skills, group work, and confidence in their own abilities. This is a huge societal problem that's going to affect our future generation of workers and will have a negative impact on the economy in terms of high turnover rates, increased medical costs, and shortages of able workers. Statistics show that if a youth or individual is under the autism spectrum, the cost to society and the system is about $2.4 million over the lifespan of that individual. There's a strong need to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness and increase the accessibility of services so these youth can feel safe in expressing themselves and can seek help without fear of isolation and rejection.
Tackling mental health awareness is a preventative tool that will lead to the overall future success and quality of life for our youth. Many of our youth are not getting proper assessments, which in turn poses a problem with placing them in jobs and sets them up for failure. Some of the solutions that we've been able to realize, for example, are customized programs for youth based on their skill sets and abilities.
For example, we have been working for about four years with a young man who came to our program. He's in the autism spectrum, so that means isolation, anxiety, and things of that nature. Through informal training and customized programs, we were able to transition him from working in our office doing vacuuming. Through encouragement and supports, and just through him taking ownership of a job and getting self-confidence, he transitioned into a local community college. Based on a lot of that informal training that we were able to assist him with, he's flourishing right now. In that program they provide, he's able to do a lot of job shadowing. Because of the informal training that we were able to give him previous to him going there, he was able to get that self-confidence and to get the support and overcome the anxiety, and now, as I said, he's flourishing.
Also, we have solutions that provide consistent support and mentorship. We have a 24-7 hotline, as we call it, for youth who are in crisis or who have any type of issues. They can contact us, and there's that support for them. Also, we increase the confidence and self-esteem, which I alluded to earlier, through strong relationship-building by our teams throughout our organizations. It's very consistent, with everyone on the same page in terms of encouragement and assisting with improving youths' self-esteem and confidence in themselves.
We also like to focus on their abilities rather than the disabilities. Our programs are tailor-made that way. In some cases, proper assessment and medication will definitely assist to get these results. Continual life skills and employment programs, which we have at Pathfinder—we'll get into that later on—also involve community partners. We've had the blessing of being able to connect with a lot of restaurants, hotels, and businesses in the community that assist us with our youth.
For example, we've connected with an organization called the Wrap Around team. This organization consists of RCMP officers whose role is to identify individuals who are marginalized or who have disabilities, whether they be mental health disabilities or any type of barriers. We work as a cohesive team and unit to assist individuals with transitioning from that situation they're in, and then we involve them in our job-training programs. School counsellors, mental health workers, probation officers, and the ministry of children and families are some stakeholders and key team players that we bring on board to provide these holistic programs.
Also, we believe that taking the time to figure out what the challenges are—investing the time—will help them in the long run. Sometimes the employment issue is not about employment itself, but about the life skills and about learning to cope with the daily challenges. Having someone there to support them from the sidelines is crucial.
In terms of employment solutions, as I alluded to earlier, we've created in-house jobs for some of our youth. Also, we've partnered with employers in the community, partners who understand some of the disabilities that we're dealing with. We advocate strongly for them.
One of our programs or projects that we're going to be launching shortly is a thrift store. This is near and dear to our hearts, the reason being that it's a one-stop shop where our youth will have the ability to learn in a controlled environment. Keep in mind that we're dealing with anxiety and all these other issues. There, they'll have the ability to learn from friendly individuals first, in a safe environment. They're learning the basics of retail sales. They're overcoming their anxieties. We have that opportunity in real time to correct, to teach, to nurture, and to assist them with getting past the anxieties. If we identify that they need more supports, we can deal with that in-house before we send them out into the community to go out and work, where sometimes, as we all know, they may fail.
I'm going to have Ruth discuss that particular project a bit.