The Province of Manitoba has launched a new program aimed at helping children who are at risk of becoming sexually exploited.
The program, which was launched in early October, is called StreetReach, and is a co-ordination of the outreach efforts of organizations like the RCMP, child and family services workers, intake workers and other agency outreach workers.
The main program will be based in downtown Winnipeg and will share information with different social agencies and law enforcement organizations. The groups will then work together to come up with strategies for identifying and safeguarding victimized youth. There will also be a StreetReach North program launched in Thompson that's being developed in a partnership with a Northern advisory committee made up of the RCMP and child and welfare and community organizations. The Northern team will operate under a similar model as the StreetReach Winnipeg team.
Gord Mackintosh, family services and housing minister with the Province of Manitoba, says that the $660,000 in funding for the StreetReach program is part of a $2.4 million sexual exploitation strategy called Tracia's Trust which was announced in December in honour of Tracia Owen, a Winnipeg teenager who committed suicide four years ago after being involved in the sex trade.
"A critical foundation of StreetReach will be the development of protocols to create an efficient working relationship among service providers including child welfare agencies, health care agencies, mental health agencies and law enforcement," Mackintosh says. "And because we know that children are sexually exploited and trafficked throughout the province, both teams [StreetReach Winnipeg and StreetReach North] will work in a close partnership to co-ordinate interventions for victims."
Const. Lois Cormier of the Thompson RCMP detachment, who has worked extensively with youth, says that she thinks StreetReach North will be an important facility within the Northern community.
"If we have someone out on the streets working with these youth at risk, it should make a difference, because a lot of these kids are on the streets because they don't have those connections with somebody," she explains. "I think the funding even needs to be increased to run these programs."
There has been no timeline set as of yet for the opening of the Thompson StreetReach facility.
