A St. Albert-based program that aims to get youths on probation back into the community got a boost last week from Edmonton Police Service.
“Edmonton Police Service donated 50 to 60 pairs of boots,” said Lee Eskdale, executive director of the Wilderness Youth Challenge program.
The Wilderness Youth Challenge program began in 2006. The organization rents office space in the St. Albert Youth Centre in Grandin Park Plaza.
Each year, Eskdale takes a handful of youths on a 10-day wilderness camping trip. Most of the youths were recommended for the program by probation officers, by teachers or by Children’s Services employees.
The youths are able to go to camp free of charge where they are taught first aid, bear awareness, how to make a fire and how to cook for themselves. Then they must spend several days alone in their own camp, fending for themselves.
According to Eskdale, the experience of being alone in the wilderness makes a big difference for some youths, but not all are able to come back and remain drug-free.
“One in five youths [from the Wilderness Youth Challenge Program] goes one year without relapse,” he said.
Eskdale first decided to try the wilderness program when he was working at Hope Mission in Edmonton.
“At Hope Mission, I kept hearing all these crazy relapse stories for youth. I attended four funerals for kids under 21 who were immersed in the drug culture. We needed a way to bridge that relapse and find a way to prevent it,” he said, adding that he had seen the success of a similar program in the 1980s conducted by Corrections Canada.
“Corrections Canada in Saskatchewan took young offenders for four days and four nights on survival camps and I saw that the kids gained self-esteem,” Eskdale explained.
The youths come from throughout the metropolitan Edmonton area and Eskdale is careful to ensure they do not know each other.
Because they must backpack into a remote area in Alberta, the donated boots from the Edmonton Police Service are especially welcome.
The boots came just in time for six at-risk youths set to embark this week to the Athabasca region with Eskdale and several other volunteers with the program.
“The kids get to keep the boots and that’s huge for some of these youth,” Eskdale said, as he explained that the Edmonton police officers are granted a fee per year for a new pair of boots. Their old boots, estimated at approximately $400 each, still have some walking left in them.
