When delving into the business of “youth services” Clearview Township must do so with clear intentions.
Council is moving ahead with the formation of a committee that will oversee the development of what is being described as a youth drop-in centre and a place to access services.
Two of the goals laid out in the newly approved terms of reference for the yet-to-be-appointed committee members are: To create and manage a youth facility that will establish a safe location where youth can attend and use community services and government sponsored services and to create a youth drop-in centre with positive mentorship and free of negative influences.
Providing a shared space for agencies to offer youth services and opening a youth centre are two very different things, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be paired.
Council must be more clear as to what it is trying to accomplish and how far it is willing to go.
Opening a municipally run youth centre is a beast onto itself and one not to be taken lightly. It would require specially trained staff to run the centre during specific hours after school and on weekends.
It is too ambitious for council to make such a centre into anything more than a resource for youth. In other youth centres, they run programs about making healthy snacks and offer homework support, maybe teach youth how to write a resume and search for a job. These types of things are doable within the mandate of municipal services.
When it comes to anything more serious, referrals would be necessary.
The township cannot get into the business of offering the health services that the upper tier municipalities are mandated to provide.
If public money is going to be used to fund this facility it must be available to all youth in Clearview. Establishing a centre in Stayner makes the most sense because of the high school, but it creates geographical boundaries for many in the township.
Many agencies will be anxious to get in on this deal. There are many youth services that have struggled with reaching youth in Clearview, which is made up of rural areas and smaller hamlets, as opposed to urban centres.
The Door, for instance, has been looking for a permanent home in Stayner and has been before council supporting the proposal.
And while we hope this youth centre in the making can serve their needs as well as everyone else’s, they should be considered one user. Again, public money should not be used to fund space for private groups.
The proposal will eat up the $100,000 in extra money from last year’s budget (set aside with the intention of using it as start-up money for youth services) at an alarming rate and then we will have another township owned space that the taxpayers struggle to pay for and a volunteer committee finds daunting to manage. It seems a shame when we already have many township-owned facilities in each of its communities that sit empty much of the time.