By Pam Wright
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Genuine. Respectful. Trust. Non-judgmental.
Those are some of the ways local youth describe their interaction with Restorative Justice Chatham-Kent.
“Judgment is a theme,” said executive director Andrea Robertson as she read out comments from among the 438 young people who have benefitted from the agency’s early intervention Positive Strides program.
Made possible by a $239,300 Ontario Trillium Foundation Grow Grant, the free eight-module program is available to children or youth ages seven to 17, across Chatham-Kent. By the time the OTF funding concludes in January 2024, Robertson said Positive Strides is on track to reach 550 youth.
The grant was celebrated at the agency’s recent annual general meeting, with Robertson noting many at-risk youths wouldn’t have been helped without it.
According to Robertson, the one-on-one individualized Positive Strides Program deals with “real-life issues that children and youth are struggling with.
“We are able to see firsthand the desired outcomes of the amazing program every day,” Robertson said. “A very warm thank you to the Ontario Trillium Foundation Grow Grant for this granting opportunity, and the opportunity to support at-risk children and youth in our community. It truly is an honour and a privilege.”
Working Through Worries is one of the initiatives that came out of the funding in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Robertson said, as it was discovered the concerns of children and youth were mounting due to the isolation and restrictions wrought by the pandemic.
Board chair Emily Robert also expressed her gratitude to OTF, saying that in her work, she sees the “positive impact” programs such as Positive Strides have in the community, particularly during the pandemic.
“COVID created an emerging need during the life of this grant, which we were able to meet due to the funding that was provided by OTF,” Robert said, noting it allowed RJCK to expand its resources.
“We saw a pretty big gap in youth struggling with isolation and coming back from that,” she said as youth grappled with the “unknowns” of the pandemic.
“The Working Through Worries program was very successful in meeting them and closing that gap,” Robert explained, adding the funding decreased and sometimes eliminated waitlists for those needing help.
“Being able to have the capacity of an additional staff really alleviated the wait list for the Positive Strides program,” she said, noting that it not only allowed more young people to get help quickly, it also helped create partnerships with other agencies and services in the community.
“RJCK is committed to continuing the success that this funding has built long past the life of the grant to impact many youths in Chatham-Kent,” Robert told the gathering.
RJCK received the OTF allocation in 2020 and the money allowed the agency to increase staffing by 2.6 positions.
Robertson said games, activities, conversations and online platforms are some of the tools RJCK uses to assist youth, noting staff are again able to go to schools and other community agencies to meet with young people face-to-face.
“We try and make our services as accessible as possible,” she said.
The organization had to “pivot” and provide online services because of COVID-19, said Robertson, something that wasn’t easy to do as young people were already overwhelmed with attending school online.
Over the course of the 2022-2023 fiscal year, RJCK saw a 24-per-cent increase over the previous year in the number of youths impacted. A total of 35 young people were served in Youth Justice Programs with RJCK providing a total of 205,205 minutes in programming.
