GREENSTONE — Greenstone’s mayor and council say work is being done by the municipality to address the need for safe spaces and programming for youth.
At its Sept. 8 meeting, council received a letter signed by a variety of community stakeholders, including representatives from the region’s Catholic and public school boards, the local OPP, the Greenstone Family Health Team and Greenstone Victim Services. It calls for more local investment in infrastructure and spaces “that supports family-oriented and youth-specific recreational programs.” The coalition’s main concern is young people’s vulnerability to human trafficking.
Some examples of areas for investment, the letter noted, include youth centres, sports leagues, creative arts programs, mentorship initiatives and other activities with a lens on mental health.
“We believe that prevention is our most powerful tool,” the letter said, adding that such investments “will strengthen community resilience and reduce the risk of trafficking.”
The coalition makes four recommendations:
• Prioritizing funding to develop “safe, supervised and inclusive recreational spaces for youth and families”
• Collaborating with social services and law enforcement “to develop and support programming aimed at prevention and awareness”
• Increase, through collaboration, public awareness initiatives about the risks and signs of trafficking
• Hold community forums to hear from youth and families
“As professionals and community members on the front lines, we are increasingly witnessing how the lack of safe spaces, meaningful recreational opportunities and structured after-school and evening activities contribute to the marginalization and vulnerability of young people in Greenstone,” the letter said.
“This lack of engagement creates conditions in which youth may be more susceptible to exploitation, including grooming and recruitment into trafficking networks.”
At Monday’s meeting, chief administrative officer Mark Wright told council that a recreation coordinator, or a similar position, would likely be tasked with handling a number of initiatives the coalition is asking for.
“Ultimately, some of the actionable next steps that they’ve identified really would fall under the purview of a rec coordinator or a rec programmer,” he said.
Greenstone mayor Jamie McPherson told Newswatch in an interview that work is underway to hire someone for that position after it was identified as a need in recent local services delivery review work.
“The coordination of all of those activities needs a point person and so that’s that person, once hired, as part of the organization of the recreation area, will be a point person then for the groups to work with the community and the community’s assets,” he said. “Because we have infrastructure that can be used — there needs to be coordination and that’s the person that will help with that.”
Wright told council that he expects a draft recreation master plan that’s already underway to be brought back to council by mid-October. He added that, in some cases, other organizations like school boards are primarily responsible for things like after-school care and programming and some organized sports.
“This is not solely for the municipality to address,” he said, adding that it provides space for other organizations to use and that some of it comes down to the availability of volunteers and other community members to run programming.
Wright said council has already endorsed a plan to revamp some space in the existing Geraldton arena for use as a multipurpose drop-in centre and that the municipality has a funding application in for that.
“In the meantime, we actually are in the process of engaging an engineer to design, or develop tender (specifications) to be able to proceed with that conversion so that we can support it,” Wright said.
McPherson said the local police service board is also in the process of being reconstituted and, once that is done, along with the municipality’s community safety and well-being plan, the local government and other local officials will have more capacity to address these issues.
“Once the recreation coordinator is in place, some of the specifics will be dealt with and … others through the police services board and through the community safety plan group,” he told Newswatch.
“Other areas can be worked on — this is something that’s definitely dynamic.”
The coalition said it wants to see multiple partners, including the municipality, come together.
“This is not just a law enforcement issue — it is a community safety, public health and social equity issue,” its letter said. “Through a united, community-based approach, we can protect our youth and build a safer, more inclusive Greenstone for everyone.”
