Q. Alright. Now let's get back to the youth, the youth connection. I'm still very curious to see how all of this came from the youth riots and I guess 2 questions. 1. Are there any of those youths that rioted 30 years ago that are volunteering for you today and second of all, how do you connect with the youth today or to what extent are youth today involved in your activities.
A. You know Steve, I am very interested in finding out where those youth are now that you asked the question of 30 years ago. I mean it would be a good exercise. I think I'm going to put that out there. maybe we can ask Cam if he can do some investigating reporting and see what's happened. In terms of our programming today, I think that what came out of that time in the village was that district council became very aware of the event as well and was very concerned about it, and I think there was some other things happening for youth across the North Shore. We currently we have a core funding policy with the district and the city of North Vancouver to provide municipal funding to fund youth outreach programs. So we work with the district and the city and are currently embarking on a youth services review to take a look at the services that we are providing across the north shore with the municipal outreach funding. To take a look if we are managing those programs and delivering the service in the best way that we can for the funding dollars that are available. Currently our program is involved in the local schools. We have youth outreach workers that have regular times that they check in with the schools, check in with counselors, check in with youth and with that program we can develop a one to one relationship with a youth who is in need of some guidance or some positive role modeling or just needs an ear to talk to. Our youth outreach workers while they are not trained counselors they are positive role models and they are able to provide support and they're also able to do some assessment and refer youth on who are in need of further support. They may do a little bit of mediation within the home environment but they can pretty much provide the youth or their families with referrals to services if they need further.
Q. And typically who would, would this be a different kind of volunteer, different from those who are helping the seniors? Is there a different age or you know, profile that's required to do that effectively? A. So within the youth program we do not use volunteers as much as with the other programs. We have some volunteers that may help out as the youth center, but in terms of the one to one relationships that would be staff that would be involved in that relationship and so we have gosh, you know between casual and regular staff we probably have 70 staff that work in that program and they're very specific people who would engage in the one to one relationship and that would be working with the youth. Our volunteers might support a group that we might establish in a school community so we might go to the school and say we're going to do a peer led program here and we might encourage involvement from youth but that would be lead very specifically by a staff member. In addition to the one to one work that we do in the schools, we also have a program that is funded through Vancouver Coastal Health which is an alcohol and drug prevention program and so we have one staff member who does prevention work in the local schools on issues of addition. And she goes in and does presentations to the classrooms, in the classrooms and then also is available to the counseling staff if they feel that there's a youth in need of treatment our staff person can do an assessment and determine whether or not the youth needs to be referred to a more clinical environment. Q. Just out of curiosity, is there any interaction between the youth, you know troubled youth, and the seniors or is it basically two different areas of activity?
A. At this time the interaction is minimal but its definitely something that I'm hoping that we can develop further. Right now for example, annually we will have our youth at our center carve pumpkins and then we'll have those delivered to seniors in their homes at Halloween. So we have some starting blocks there in terms of making some connections between the programs but to develop some more intergenerational programs I think, is really a highlight for us and something that we're hoping to move towards. It is important to do it in a very supportive way because our seniors are frail and are so at risk themselves so we have to be very cautious about what is appropriate for them. But definitely the pumpkins are huge hit at Halloween and that's something that's very, very easy to see and yet you know to see the joy on the senior's face and also for the youth to be able to do that and to be able to see the impact that they can have is very important. Q. Well I think, you know I'm sure there's other, there are other activities that we haven't covered but I think that certainly give us a very good idea of the range of activities and I think it must be very satisfying for you to be involved in this kind of thing where you're able to help so many people, probably providing sort of, a lot of meaningful activity not only for the seniors but also for the volunteers. A. Absolutely. The benefits are huge and it's very interesting because, you know as I've mentioned, we've survived 30 years and that's just by funding challenges that have been huge. It's interesting to note that our services have not changed significantly and they have continued to gradually grow but we've continued to be fairly safe in the funding formula that we have and I really believe that the reason for that is because we are delivering a service that is so needed and so supported in the community that it is appreciated and valued by everyone who can see that it really is a good service and when you're using 200 volunteers to deliver a service there's almost no, you can't argue with the impact of that. Q. Well I won't argue with it and thank you very, very much.
