City program offers youth engagement opportunity

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on September 21, 2024.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Lethbridge Police Constable Chris Andrade speaks to reporters about a pilot program called "Off the record" that took place over the summer in partnership with the city of Lethbridge's Building Safer Communities program Friday at city hall.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The City of Lethbridge in partnership with Lethbridge Police Service announced Friday they provided an opportunity for youth over the summer to engage with members of LPS and the city through sports.

The City’s Building Safer Communities program worked with LPS to host recreational events in public parks throughout the community. The program provided valuable mentorship opportunities with off-duty officers through sport.

Allison Sherry, Case Manager with the City’s Building Safer Communities program, spoke about their pilot program called “Off the record” on Friday morning during a media availability at City Hall.

“Building Safer Communities is a grant funded program through Public Safety Canada run by the City of Lethbridge and in collaboration with Lethbridge Police Service,” said Sherry.

She explained they work with youth in the community doing preventative measures to make sure they are well connected.

“We have educators and case managers that work with social service providers and youth,” said Sherry.

She said “Off the record” came as result of a community needs assessment that showed that youth were struggling to find opportunities for pro-social, low barrier and accessible activities.

Sherry added that the assessment also showed a disconnect between the police and the youth because they are very overwhelmed with work.

“We developed Off the Record after looking at other communities that implemented similar projects where they had youth engaging with officers playing sports,” said Sherry.

She said they did a pilot project throughout the summer, with three sessions that had over 60 youth and twenty officers in attendance.

“We did basketball and soccer because it’s kind of a common language. We saw a lot of newcomers coming to the session, so if there is a language barrier, they know soccer or as they call it football and basketball,” said Sherry.

She said the name “Off the record” came after talking to her manager one day and they were saying how nice it would be to go “off the record” with the police and just stuck with them.

Constable Chris Andrade with the LPS community resource unit, told reporters Friday that the pilot project was well received by everyone who participated.

“We had a little over 20 police and peace officers that were able to come out on their personal time and assist with this,” said Andrade.

He said during the sessions, many kids participated that were initially unaware od what was going on as they just joined in on the spot.

“If there were any kids in the community walking by we waved them over and said hey, come play some soccer with us and the group really grew quite quickly when we had that,” said Andrade.

He explained they had a wide range of ages. There was kids as young as six to eight years old and as old as 16 years old.

Andrade said the pilot was very successful and he thinks they are going to have a lot of buy in from LPS members to continue volunteering their time to do it.

“But we’re going to work with the City of Lethbridge just to make sure we can secure some venues and hopefully some dates and times in the future,” said Andrade.

For more information on the Building Safer Communities program, please visit lethbridge.ca/CSD.