Security threats to youth are increasing as aid withdraws

One youth safety program in the Capital Region has been suspended because the Greater Victoria School Board believes students and staff do not feel safe when police visit schools.

Another team – the two-person Mobile Youth Services team that is widely praised for doing excellent work in the same area – has run out of money and is limiting activities to two days a week.

The first point of contact for young people in trouble is crucial in setting the tone for how help is delivered. Now two key outfits that fill that role have been suspended or curtailed.

A new report this week vividly describes how important that feature is. It focuses on MYST, but the observations also apply to the controversy over school police liaison officers.

Rebeccah Nelems, an independent academic who studies the delivery of social services, was commissioned by the Victoria Family Court and the Youth Justice Committee to review the MYST program due to the budget crisis it faces.

Her 12-page report says there has been an “exponential increase” locally in the number of young people facing serious threats to their wellbeing.

The opioid crisis, homelessness, mental health issues and increasing gang activity have created an “urgent crisis regarding the exploitation of youth gangs,” she concluded.

Online harassment, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, gun cases and the targeting of younger children are all problems that are getting worse.

“While gang violence and youth exploitation are not new to Greater Victoria, Lower Mainland gangs have increasingly entrenched themselves in the region over the past five to seven years…” Nelems wrote.

The school board previously downplayed similar warnings from Victoria Police Chief Del Manak about the gang threat as a reason to reinstate the school police liaison officer program, stating: “In the absence of historical police data, it is not possible to determine whether recent reports of gang recruitment or other criminal activity represent a change in activity.”

It’s time to acknowledge that things have changed.

MYST consists of two highly regarded people: experienced youth counselor Mia Golden and VicPD Const. Gord Magee, who received the Governor General’s Award for Exemplary Service earlier this year.

Before their hours were cut this week, they were providing 24/7 coverage and handling a caseload of 250 vulnerable young people, on a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars.

It is considered unique in the way it crosses all jurisdictional boundaries and engages with young people personally and directly.

It is relatively inconspicuous, but all kinds of emergency services in the region are very familiar with it and call them regularly.

Nelems recommends coming up with a more secure ongoing budget model at all levels of government, and increasing it to the $700,000 per year range to double the size of the team.

If politicians have too little to talk about in the current election campaign, the holes in the safety net for the increasing number of children who get into serious problems are worth raising.

The two different programs need two different solutions and both require political action.

The reinstatement of school police liaison officers would result in the school board abandoning its misguided position.

The NDP government instructed the board last week to draw up a new safety plan. It’s an indirect way to lead them in that direction. The directive emerged from months of frustration after private pushes and public demands from municipal leaders failed.

To give MYST a secure, improved foundation, exactly what Nelems recommended is needed: a new, region-wide financing mechanism.

The next government after the elections could guide both solutions.

If the new safety plan expected Nov. 15 does not include school police liaison officers, the province’s message to the board should be two words: “Try again.”

The creation of a new financing model could also be arranged in a relatively short period of time.

NDP Leader David Eby this week backed such programs, saying his government would “support these types of connection programs.”

None of the other contenders will disagree with that at this point.

The reinstatement of the school police liaison officer would take some pressure off MYST as they became the first point of contact following its closure.

Golden, with ten years of experience on the team and years previously in the same field, told the report’s author, Nelems, that “the number of young people becoming addicted to substances and being trafficked and exploited for sex is enormous.

“We can’t keep up.”

(email protected)

>>> To respond to this article, please write a letter to the editor: (email protected)