As the chair of the board for the local youth outreach agency Battlefords Concern for Youth, I would like to take the opportunity to respond to the recent article about the sentencing of a man for four charges including assault.
In recent media articles, it has been noted that the individual was employed by CFY and this is untrue. The person was under contract by our agency, but after the incidence, his contract with us terminated.
As an agency, we have put in place policies regarding those working for or volunteering for our agency, including submission of a criminal record check and a vulnerable sector check. Our policy, which at the time the person was contracted, was similar to many non-profit agencies, has since been amended to providing a current record check done within the last month. At the time the contract began, the person did provide a record check that came back without any abnormalities.
"Passley gets two years for violent assault" (Regional Optimist, Dec. 19), highlighted that the crown prosecutor was concerned that the person involved would be employed by an agency such as ours and that the individual was in contact with youth, thereby implying we are conducting our services with disregard for the youth of our community. We would like to note that as a board, made of representatives from the RCMP, City of North Battleford, Town of Battleford, Ministry of Social Services, Mental Health and Addictions, Living Sky School Division, Light of Christ School Division, Battle River Treaty 6 Health Centre, BTC Justice and Sakewew High School, that we take this implication very seriously.
As a prosecutor for a case, it seems to us, that if you are going to talk about the services offered by a local non-profit agency, that one should have talked to the agency before referring to the services, policies and programs of that agency in court proceedings and being published in the media. As any prosecutors for this case did not contact us, we cannot understand why they would refer to our agency in a negative way in any capacity.
CFY provides direct support to youth in our community on a daily basis, by helping them to access local services, finding them stable housing and food, helping them to develop workplace skills, keeping them out of harm, providing transportation to after school programming and mentoring youth transitioning out of custody and back into their communities. We are proud of the work we do in this community and would hope that before a person seems to throw a non-profit agency under the bus, they would first connect with that agency.
Kent Lindgren
North Battleford
