Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the committee.
I have circulated a brief document in terms of some of the points I would like to touch on this morning. Some of them will be repetition. I think there are points that are always raised in this type of discussion, but that doesn't in any way speak to their importance, and I think they are always worth repeating.
Just to give you a bit of background, Macdonald Youth Services is a private, not-for-profit, charitable organization that's been active in providing support and services to youths and their families in Winnipeg communities since 1929. Our legal name is Sir Hugh John Macdonald Memorial Hostel. We were started by a group of concerned citizens in 1929 upon the death of Sir Hugh John, son of John A. Macdonald, who had a number of roles in Manitoba, one of them as police magistrate. The work he did, in terms of a fairly progressive approach to administering justice, looked at solutions that involved not just fines and incarceration. Rather, resources, a place to stay, a connection for jobs, and some reassurance were also seen as valid ways of administering justice.
We currently provide a variety of youth programming in and around Winnipeg, as well as northern Manitoba in The Pas and Thompson. On a provincial level we receive funding from the departments of family services, justice, and education, as well as the United Way of Winnipeg. Federally, we receive funding through the housing and homelessness initiative in support of a youth shelter that we operate, and through the skills link funding of Service Canada for a program that uses a model of community service supported by volunteer mentors as a way for youth to build the skills they need. That program grew out of our work with the justice department and the community service order program, looking at ways of working with youth to change the way they see the world, and the way the world sees them and the skills they have.
In speaking to the state of organized crime in Canada, our perspective is from one of youth programming and the importance of investment in prevention. We see youth involved in street gangs and in criminal activity, and we see also an opportunity to intervene at this point. It's based on our confidence in the ability of young people to make good choices when provided with realistic options. It's also based on the knowledge of the difficulty of change, and the need to have programs that are accessible, flexible, resilient, and effective. When people talk about early intervention and prevention, I often find they're focusing on youth zero to six. As an agency, we focus on youth 12 to 17, as well as some programming that extends past that into early adulthood--we see lots of opportunities for intervention and prevention at those times, as well. My concern is that at times we tend to write off adolescents as a group we cannot reach other than through the courts or the police.
Some of the areas we are not talking about today--police and the court system--are an important part of the work we do. Some of the programs we provide as an agency only work effectively where there has been adjudication through the court system and a probation order that supports the work we do. I think the root causes of some of these things are well documented in terms of poverty, discrimination, addictions, and violence. I don't have a lot of specific information about organized crime, but certainly we do see ourselves as competing with organized crime in terms of the youth we work with. That is one of their career opportunities, if you will. What we want to do is provide options so they choose to not pursue that path. But that's a difficult one.
I will speak only generally about the programs because there is a limit of ten minutes. I could speak a lot about them, so if you would like specifics, that certainly is available.
Programs need to have staff that connect with youth. In this day we focus on more and more Internet and computer access. The youth we work with need that human connection in terms of building relationships and starting to address some of the issues they have not been willing or able to talk about. We need to involve the youth in the community. Our programs provide opportunities for them to be out working in resources like Winnipeg Harvest, seniors centres, and the Humane Society, so that they see themselves as a part of the community, and the community changes its perspective of them and sees them as a viable part of the community.
We need to challenge the negative stereotype they have of themselves and the community has of them. When they're putting together a food order for someone less fortunate, they are the helper, a role they have not been in often.
We need to allow youth to identify and develop their strengths.Their strengths may not be academic. School has not supported them in their involvement in their academic development but more in terms of the emotional intelligence, the ability to develop relationships. I think some of the opportunities we provide reassure them that they have those skills. When you're out at a seniors home and someone who presents themselves as a tough adolescent is very empathetic to a senior who is angry and frustrated with the situation, they can reach out and develop a relationship with them. They have a lot of skills. They don't necessarily feel they do.
Programs need to be accessible. They need to be flexible. I think this is a point where my experience as a parent as well as a professional working with youth and the way everybody goes through adolescence and the challenges they face.... We need to have flexibility. We need to demonstrate that we believe in and value youth and we need to allow for failure. Often failure is a very important learning experience, but often for these youth failure means everything they have falls apart. So we need to provide programs that can support them through those difficult times.
There are the challenges that we find in terms of programs, and I think that's general to most programs. Funding is usually project-based and needs to be renewed each year. Much time and energy goes into applying for funding, developing a contract, filing claims, and we're not certain if funding will be renewed. That can make staffing difficult. You ask someone to commit to the challenge of working long-term with these youth, but the funding is up in six months. There's somewhat of a contradiction in there. Being project-based funding, it often doesn't take into account health benefits, pension, and holidays are limited to the basic minimum. Again, we're asking people to commit as a career to working with these youth and we need to give them the message, just as we need to give the youth the message, that this is an important area of work.
Often, once funding is established, the next year brings a reduction in the amount available or no increase, which is effectively a reduction as costs go up. The other piece that's challenging to talk about is evaluation of these programs. Often evaluation is shor-term in nature. I can tell you when they left the program, this is what they did, but what they do a year or two later is the piece we're looking for, and often that is because we don't have the capacity to follow up other than anecdotally, being specific about the impact that programs have.
In terms of considering our plan for intervention in terms of helping youth choose a different path, there are challenges for us as a community. We are competing with organized crime or with street gangs as an employer of these youth, and they are very serious competitors. They have a lot to offer and it's enticing in the short term. Often youth do not see a future for themselves in our community. It's unfortunate, but when they look to the future the message they receive is that there isn't a viable place for them. They do not see us as caring. We say we do, that youth are our future, but often the messages we give in terms of the supports that are available contradict that.
With the global economy there's a growing number of good jobs that are not there any more, and I think this is related not just to these youth, but to youth in general. There is a range of jobs that are not available in our country any more, that were available without university education. You could get a reasonable job and have it for a career, and I think those jobs are not available.
The latest in the paper this morning is that Convergys call centres are closing up their operation. At one point, they employed 2,200 people, often young people getting their start. My son started there and has moved on to another job, but he certainly gained a lot of skills through that experience, and that will not be available. It didn't require a university degree.
So I think we have to accept that many of the jobs we would like young people to have require much more education than they used to. For many of the youth we work with, education is not accessible...not allowing them to learn what they need to know, and often teaching them exactly what we don't want them to--that they cannot learn, that they are stupid, and that they have no place in school.
One of our greatest assets is our aboriginal population, a rapidly growing youth segment, but our concern is that we don't see it as an asset and they don't necessarily feel we see it as an asset. Fortunately, in Winnipeg there's a growing number of aboriginal groups working with youth successfully, and I think that investment has a double impact. Not only is it reaching out to youth in an appropriate way, but it also allows them to see that there is a future in the community. They see people with jobs and programs that can employ them and that the investment they need to make in terms of the energy and the challenge of changing is worth while.
Those are some of the pieces I wanted to present. Maybe I will leave it at that and await your questions.