Funding to Assist Gang-involved Young Offenders Gain New Skills

Minister MacKay Announces Funding to Assist Gang-involved Young Offenders Gain New Skills

Funding support to help youth make a positive change in their lives and contribute to their communities

April 24, 2014 - Toronto, ON - Department of Justice Canada

Today, Justice Minister Peter MacKay announced $604,372 in funding to the Child Development Institute's Centre for Children Committing Offences (CCCO). The funding is supporting their Stop Now and Plan (SNAP^®) for Youth in Custody project, which helps at-risk youth in custody to develop the necessary skills to resist gang involvement.

This funding, under the Youth Justice Initiative, encourages a fair and effective youth justice system, responds to emerging youth justice issues, and enables greater citizen and community participation in the youth justice system, thereby promoting a holistic approach to helping youth.

Quick Facts

• The SNAP^® for Youth in Custody project is designed to improve self-control and problem-solving skills for youth in custody who are in gangs or are at risk of gang involvement.
• The project also includes the development of web based modules and training for custody workers. The modules focus on engaging youth in custody with interesting and creative learning approaches by providing real-life scenarios designed to improve self-control, decision making skills and pro social strategies.
• SNAP^® stands for Stop Now and Plan. It is a cognitive-behavioural strategy developed over the past 25 years that helps children and parents regulate angry feelings by getting them to stop, think, and plan positive alternatives before they act impulsively. This project has adapted the SNAP^® model for young offenders in custody.
• Youth participants are involved in developing, implementing and evaluating activities, ensuring the program is relevant to these at-risk youth.
• A total of $604,372 is being provided over four fiscal years - 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16.
• The funding is being provided through the Youth Justice Fund's Guns, Gangs and Drugs component, which responds to youth involved in the justice system who are involved in, or vulnerable to, gun-, gang- and drug-related activities.
• The Government is taking a multi-pronged approach to crime, by supporting projects such as this one to help reduce victimization by rehabilitating and reintegrating young offenders, as well as by introducing transformational legislation to create a Canadian Victims Bill of Rights that would create, at the federal level, clear rights for victims of crime - a first in Canadian history.

Source:  Department of Justice.