Pubdate: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 Source: Surrey Now (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc., A Canwest Company Contact: http://www.thenownewspaper.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1462 Series: Other elements in this series may be found at: http://www.mapinc.org/source/Surrey+Now+%28CN+BC%29 Author: Carolyn Cooke Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) FEW DETOX BEDS HERE FOR YOUTH Second in a series. Some nights are just a "gong show." That's what Melanie Sheard, a Surrey Reconnect youth outreach worker, calls it when her outreach shift is eaten up trying to juggle multiple kids with crises. One such evening in late January saw Sheard fielding countless calls from two young runaway girls in different parts of the city. Sheard was asked by one of the girls, who just had a "massive fight with her parents," to meet her and her boyfriend at a fast-food restaurant to talk about their options and choices. In the end, the girl decided to stay with her boyfriend and sleep in parks or building doorways. "It's not that there are more girls who run away but we hear about more of them," said Sheard. "Generally females ask for help more than males do. Females talk more than males do." The other runaway's situation couldn't be sorted out by the end of Sheard's shift. "At 11 (o'clock), you just have to turn the phone off and try not to think about it," she said. Sheard, whose caseload has been almost exclusively young girls in her year-and-a-half with Surrey Reconnect, said that there is a huge range of issues particular to dealing with girls, runaways or not. Because of this, girls will almost always ask to have a female youth worker. Some males do have body image issues, she said, "but how many guys have had a fat day?" Sheard said body control issues are another major concern for young girls. "If you can't control anything else in your life, you can control what you do to your body, what you put into your body, or not put into your body," she said. "That's when it gets really tough." Also an issue is young girls - 13 or 14 years old - with much older boyfriends, Sheard says. Some of these girls have boyfriends who are 26 or 30, said Sheard, and then you have to explain that their boyfriend isn't looking for a meaningful relationship, he's a pedophile. Many girls, like boys, also have addictions they're grappling with, and the lack of youth detox beds in the city is a real problem in trying to get help for these kids. "They never get in," said Sheard. "There's always a waitlist. By the time there's a spot open they've already gone on another binge." Shayne Williams, another youth outreach worker, agreed, saying he recently spent two weeks trying to get a spot for one of his clients but ultimately the teen didn't get into one of Maple Cottage's three youth detox beds before he slipped back into using. Maple Cottage has the only youth detox beds in the Fraser Health Authority. In addition, there is a desperate need for safe houses for youth in Surrey. As it stands, if a kid is kicked out of home, is already on the streets or has nowhere else to go and turns to a youth worker for help, the nearest safe house is in the Downtown Eastside. Williams wonders if they're really doing the child a service sending them to Covenant House, which also takes street people in their 20s. "We wouldn't refer someone there unless they're really street entrenched and can handle themselves. They don't even have friends to fall back on there," said Williams. The next morning, the kids are stranded downtown at risk of getting into an even worse predicament. Instead, Surrey's Reconnect workers try to get kids into a safe house in North Vancouver, their only other real option. "For the most part, they won't go," said Sheard. If the kids are in a school work program, for example, she said they don't want to go because it's too far from Surrey. And sometimes, that isn't even an option: the North Van safe house doesn't always have space to spare. "Surrey should have its own safe house," said Williams. "Because of the number of kids we deal with, we could keep a house full." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom