Today, I was walking through the park with my dog Alvin and I came by the basketball court thats there. I recognized a couple of young men in their twenties and stopped for a minute to say hello. They were taking a short rest from being on the court. Two of them knew that I used to be a Police Officer in Toronto from previous conversations where they had asked me and one said that they had been talking about how ‘tuff’ the world is becoming, tuition fees, jobs, house prices and a couple other topics. Right up my alley and i’ll be darned if I leave them stranded, so talk we did. Not only living as a Crown Ward with the Toronto Children’s Aid Society, including being in Foster homes for a few years, but then being adopted to a Jamaican family and going to live in Jamaica and at almost 17, coming back to Canada, yes, I feel that I am fairly qualified to have this conversation. My experience with speaking with youth included about 6 years working in Security in the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority projects, additional Security working in hotel Security at the Delta Chelsea Inn and the Toronto Eaton Centre Mall Security working for Cadillac Fairview and finally almost 27 years as a Police Officer with the Toronto Police Service. I have also spoken with groups of both adults and kids with the Adoption Council of Ontario.
These are very tough times for youth and we all need to acknowledge this firstly. Imagine the route that many of the youth go, is firstly being committed enough to finish high school, then getting summer jobs or for some, part time jobs through the school year, just to try and get educated and specialize and try to reach their dreams, loads and loads of debt and discipline. Hopefully having a good support system in their lives for encouragement and guidance. Unfortunately, many do not. Speaking with these youth, I was very honest with them and told them of the many years that I had lived on my own when I was younger and when I made mistakes and the consequences of those mistakes. The biggest lesson that I ever learned was shortly after graduating from College, I didn’t budget properly, fell behind in rent from a student rooming house that I was living in and ended up living in my car for 5 weeks. A plain ’67 Mustang is nice but not too comfortable to sleep in. These youth that I was speaking with, I had their attention. They were learning that sometimes when you think that things might not be easy, there are always many others who have things a lot worse than they could ever imagine. Navigating the route to your dreams can be quite complexed and every decision that you make can either cause another hurdle in ones life or a life raft. I went on to tell them to write things down, formulate a plan of what you know and don’t be afraid to ask for advice from educators, people that you know that are in the professions that you may have questions about, maybe parents of good friends that you know and trust and certainly make use of the computers in Libraries if you don’t have one and search the many services that the Government offers and study and remember your information. Nowadays, although there are many problems that arise in the life of a young person, they can find many answers, as in my suggestions given. From my profession, I have never known a Police Officer that wouldn’t offer guidance and assistance to a young person, if they just walked into a Police station and asked for it. I have seen it hundreds of times, the kindness, the concern and stories that I could recount, are too many to mention but very easily remembered, thats why I love them so much. Im sure that there are many similar stories in all of the different professions, so my point is, the help is there, you can do this.
I believe that it is our duty as an adult, to help in the way of guidance and advice, if they ask, to our youth of today. They do have it tough. It is so much easier to help them now, rather than them going in the wrong direction and trying to solve an even bigger problem later.
Believe me, sleeping many nights in the seats of a ’67 Mustang, will not find you answers.