Thank you very much.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning to discuss the START program and our multi-disciplinary approach to working with at-risk youth and how it relates to your study of the economics of policing.
Eleven years ago, our community in Manitoba decided to work together to benefit the youth and their families who were the largest consumers of policing, child and family services, and probation services, while also showing significant school-based issues. These agencies decided to pinpoint the youth and their families, who had involvement with the agencies, yet didn't seem to be showing any significant improvement for it.
Their collaboration became the Selkirk Team for At-Risk Teens, or START program, and they were quickly joined by mental and public health services and addiction services. To date, this collaboration has resulted in over 1,800 case conferences on behalf of at-risk youth aged 11 to 18, with the goal of identifying, planning for, intervening, and assisting at-risk youth to become productive members of our community.
The key to the START model is the involvement of the youth and their family as part of the multi-agency team, and their ability to openly share and address what the real issues are. Understanding the reason behind the behaviour is necessary to creating a successful plan that provides a customized network of supports for the youth and increases their chance of success, while decreasing the burden on social service and policing agencies. Accountability is a big part of this model for the youth, the family, and the agencies. START also provides a longer-term approach—six months to years—depending on the intensity of the situation, as we have found that stabilizing a crisis is important, but it's not enough to build the required skills to prevent the next crisis from happening.
Many communities come together in multi-agency collaborations that eventually falter or are not productive, as all members of the group have another full-time job to do and it becomes onerous to maintain effectiveness, especially without consent to share information. The START model has a coordinator whose responsibility it is to set and chair the case conferences for the youth, to ensure that the youth and family feel heard and are engaging in the process, to advocate for the youth, and to follow up on plans created to ensure follow-through and ultimately a better chance at success, all shared with consent. This format works very well in smaller communities where there are fewer resources, or where workers are covering many areas, as the coordinator is able to ensure they are informed of any concerns or issues that arise with the client, even if they're not scheduled to see them for another few weeks.
The START coordinator is located in the RCMP detachment, making it easy for members to make client referrals of youth who are generating multiple calls for service and for the coordinator to share pertinent information with police when the need arises. We have been able to consistently show decreases in calls to RCMP after a youth is referred to START. Courts in our area have recognized the benefit of START and made participation in the program a part of their dispositions, and we frequently provide information to crown attorneys and justice committees to assist them in making more informed decisions. Additionally, START maintains a file that holds all the necessary information provided by each agency for each youth, a very necessary tool for situations where having all the facts at hand can assist any agency to make a more appropriate decision on how to intervene.
Our recent evaluation, funded by National Crime Prevention Services, has findings that are very favourable toward the program and speak to an increased inter-agency collaboration and achieving positive client outcomes for the vast majority of our clients, even with the continual increase in the number of client referrals each year and the risk level of the clients we work with. The program model has spread to three other communities in Manitoba and functions equally well with different demographics.
The START program is managed and funded by the involved community agencies and all three levels of government. Unfortunately, this year, our largest funder, Service Canada, is no longer providing funding to START or any of the other communities utilizing the model, leaving us with a shortfall that may be insurmountable unless we find another federal source of funding. This lack of funding also creates difficulties for other areas that are looking to duplicate this model in their communities but cannot get support at all levels of government.
It has been repeatedly said that law enforcement has become the front line for all social issues, and this will not change unless we offer a solution to coordinate the resources from all agencies to address the reasons behind the behaviours.
I have a quote in my office by Walter Barbee that says, “If you've told a child a thousand times and he still does not understand, then it's not the child who is the slow learner.”
If police are being called to the same home for the same reasons, and this happens often, then we haven't addressed the real issue and we need to look at the situation differently. That's what START does.
Thank you.