Building bridges between police, teens
‘It really makes me look at officers in a different light,’ YIPI program participant says
As a longtime resident of Scarborough’s Chester Le area, 18-year-old Aaliyah Wright has heard gunshots and known people who have been killed as a result of the violence.
“I wasn’t allowed to go out a lot when I was a kid,” the teen said. “There’s been a lot of stabbings and shootings … and it’s hard on the community.”
Earlier this year, Chester Le neighbourhood police officers spoke to a local youth group that Wright helps out with and suggested that she apply for a summer job with the Toronto Police Service.
Wright went through the hiring process and is now among 153 teens in the Youth In Policing Initiative (YIPI) summer program, which gives students from priority neighbourhoods full-time work for eight weeks.
Wright, who works at north Scarborough’s 42 Division, recently graduated from high school and plans to study criminology at university this fall.
“The attitude toward police in Chester Le is not the greatest, like the adults particularly don’t trust them as much as maybe their kids do,” she said.
“I never had any experiences with them (police), it’s just what everybody told me or whatever they were being perpetuated as in the media.”
Wright’s perspective on policing has now changed, she said, in part because of her summer job, which ends this week.
“It really makes me look at officers in a different light.”
She’s now interested in a career as a cop.
Wright is one of four YIPI students assigned to 42 Division, where she performs a wide range of tasks — from office work to helping community response officers deliver safety presentations at local daycares and camps.
As part of the YIPI program, students are also taken on tours of police facilities throughout the city. They recently visited the canine unit.
Const. Alison Burns, who oversees the YIPI students at 42 Division, said the program bridges the gap between youth and police.
“From my perspective, it’s a way to engage with the youth in our community, to get them intertwined with us,” she said. “They also get to see what we do as police officers … It’s a winwin on both ends. We’re learning from them just as much as they’re gaining from this experience with us.”
YIPI, which is funded by the province, was launched in 2006 as a pilot project in response to the 2005 “Year of the Gun,” which saw 52 fatal shootings in Toronto.
“I think they figured if you gave young people constructive things to do … in the summer, it would cut down on what was going on in the city at the time,” YIPI co-ordinator Melva Radway said.
But the program had its critics in the beginning.
“In 2006, we had a meeting and community members were brought in and were told about this upcoming program. Some said it wouldn’t work because the students wouldn’t want to work with police officers,” recalled Radway, who has worked with YIPI since its inception.
“That year, we got about 1,000 applications and we hired 100 students.”
Radway said that after YIPI’s third year, the province expanded the program to other police services.
“And then in the fourth year, we were asked to hire 153 students.”
In 2012, YIPI was expanded again to include an after-school program that hires126 students to work part time from September to December or February to June.
Among its goals, YIPI aims to give young people an opportunity to develop job skills while fostering positive partnerships with police.
“Our mandate is to enhance the link between the police and the neighbourhoods that we serve, and also to provide a safe and positive employment opportunity,” Radway said.
“And we give them life skills. We have a training week where we train students on money management, communication, how to write a proper email, how to answer the phone, how to conduct themselves at an interview.”
YIPI applicants must be 15 to 18 years old, have no criminal charges and live in a priority neighbourhood in Toronto.
Radway noted that some students come into the program being afraid of the police. But once they spend time working with the officers, their outlook changes, she said.
“It’s more than just having kids working here. You see them develop. You see how much they’ve grown even within eight weeks.”