Making an impact
Program targeting at-risk youth seeing success
A national crime prevention program is having an impact on at-risk youth in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, the board of police commissioners heard this week.
Jean MacAdam, executive director of Resiliency Education Leadership Adventure and Youth Service or RELAYS, provided an update on the program to the board Tuesday. Some councillors had asked for a briefing on the program as part of the recent budget discussions. The CBRM is contributing $600,000 to it over a five-year period. It also receives federal funding of $855,000 a year.
The goal of RELAYS is to help 70 teens between the ages of 12 and 17 overcome drug abuse, anger issues and other challenges that put them at risk for criminal behaviour.
“We were hoping that we would get maybe 140 referrals … to date we’ve had 210 referrals,” MacAdam said. “We have definitely reached our target.”
At any given time there are more than 70 active youth. Once young people “age out” of the program at age 18 they can become mentors and to date five have done so.
“We try to figure out what can we offer that young person and if it was appropriate they became peer mentors,” MacAdam said. “This would have worked out really well not only for the young person but for the new people that are coming in, it really helps to engage the young people.”
The contract for the program was signed in August 2015 and staff was in place and ready to accept referrals by the following April. Its six sites are in Eskasoni, Sydney Mines, New Waterford, Glace Bay and two in Sydney, including one in Whitney Pier.
Activities range from attending powwows, snowboarding, job search sessions and learning about healthy relationships.
Among the group projects it is taking on is an entry in the annual Lumiere festival, working with artist Onni Nordman on an interactive art installation.
“The idea behind RELAYS is we engage them where they are, so we find out what their interests are and we put on those types of activities to try and engage them so that we can work with their anger issues, their drug addiction issues, their anxiety issues,” MacAdam said.
MacAdam said many of the activities are cultural in nature, noting many young people aren’t well versed in their own traditional cultures. They are currently working on putting together an elder camp in Eskasoni.
“It’s breaking barriers,” MacAdam said.
Facilitator Tiffany MacDonald spoke about one young person who became involved with RELAYS at age 13. At the time, he wasn’t attending school and instead had work packages sent home. His behaviour was very disruptive and he was very angry when he initially came to the program, MacDonald said.
They worked one-on–one with him, providing access to activities in which he had an interest.
“He was starting to change, you could see that the anger was lessening, his aggression wasn’t as frequent,” MacDonald said. “He was building friendships, he was starting to get along with others, he was even starting to help the new members in our group.”
He has continued to progress and has good social supports as he plans to return to school in September, she added.
The program has an oversight committee with people in the community who have experience working with at-risk youth.