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September 1, 2006

Police Service And Province Mark Youth Achievement

Youth From Toronto And Surrounding Communities Gained Valuable Job And Life Skills

TORONTO — One hundred youth from communities across Toronto have gained valuable skills and important life experience thanks to a joint provincial and Toronto Police Service (TPS) youth employment initiative, said Minister of Children and Youth Services Mary Anne Chambers and Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair.

“Youth in Policing has been a wonderful opportunity to acquire new skills and build relationships while earning some money over the summer,” said Chambers. “The Youth in Policing Initiative had a 100 per cent completion rate and, just as important, these young people acquired a foundation on which to achieve future employment and career ambitions.”

Under this first-ever program, youth, 14 to 17 years of age, were placed in jobs with various TPS departments, including Information Technology, Forensic Identification, Community Mobilization, Traffic Safety and the Marine Unit. Six additional youth were placed with Durham Regional Police Service.

“This ground-breaking program has exceeded all expectations,” said Chief Blair.  “These young people were given the opportunity to gain job and life skills and they took it.  My officers were given the opportunity to learn from these young people and engage in meaningful relationship-building and they took it.  This was clearly a win-win for everybody.”

Response to the invitation to apply for the TPS summer experience resulted in over 1,000 applicants for the 100 available summer positions.  The Ontario government provided $390,000 to support the Youth in Policing Initiative this year. Next year, the government will invest about $585,000 to expand the initiative, enabling at least 50 more youth to work with other police service organizations across the province.

“This was a good experience because I was out in the community a lot,” said Britanny Brathwaite, 18, assigned to 14 Division.  “Before I started this job, my perception of the police was that they’re all bad and out to get you.  But I’m happy I was wrong because most police officers are really nice and they’re just normal people like us.”
 
The Youth in Policing Initiative is one component of the province’s Youth Opportunities Strategy, a broad plan to help young people faced with significant challenges to achieve success.  This year, the strategy also included:

• Establishing an annual Summer Jobs for Youth Program for approximately 800 youth from under-served communities in Toronto
• Hiring 39 youth outreach workers in Toronto and Durham Region
• Helping 16 Toronto youth complete their high school education through a Learn and Work Pilot Program
• Piloting a new school-based program to support pro-active peer mediation and role-modelling programs for high school students.

The Youth Opportunities Strategy is one of the many steps the McGuinty government has taken to provide more opportunities for Ontario’s youth. Other initiatives include:

• The $20-million Community Use of Schools Program to increase the use of schools by not-for-profit groups at reduced rates.
• An investment of $52 million this year to help 56,000 young people find work or start their own business as part of the Ontario Summer Jobs Program.
• An increase in the number of registered new apprentices to 26,000 annually in 2007-08 and an Apprenticeship Training Tax Credit to make it easier for employers to hire and train new apprentices.
• A Student Access Guarantee to ensure about 200,000 students from lower- and middle-income families have access to the resources they need for their college or university tuition, books and mandatory fees.

"This whole summer has been a great learning experience," said Tracy Agyeiwaa, 16, assigned to Community Mobilization. "I would have never thought by the age of 16 that I would be working at Police Headquarters.  It's not a typical teenage summer job but I have been one of the 100 to experience this.  I've also discovered police aren't all that people make them out to be.  They are as human as humans get."

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