LAC LA BICHE - A Lac La Biche facility that has been responsible for rehabilitating and housing troubled youth for more than 40 years is slated to be closed for two years while renovations are completed.
The Lac La Biche Youth Assessment Centre will close its doors at the end of 2022, and remain closed until 2025 while the provincial government spends more than $8 million on a major renovations of the facility.
The closure of the provincially-funded centre that is part of the Alberta Children’s Services department, will have a massive impact on supports needed for vulnerable youth, says Mike Dempsey, the vice-president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), and a long-time Lac La Biche resident.
Though the construction and upgrade project is needed, shuttering the services in the community while the work is done is not the right call, says Dempsey.
Ultimately, the YAC is set up to support “troubled youth between the ages of 12 to 17 with mental health issues, (who may be) also dealing with trauma and loss,” he said. Some of the clients come through the justice system, others from social services and child services.Wherever they come from, there has been a certain amount of upheaval that is addressed at the centre, says Dempsey.
“To have some stability in their lives is very important,” he continued, explaining that the youth could be relocated to similar facilities in other part of the province like High Prairie or Red Deer, and that disrupts the consistency and could keep families apart.
“That will also create stress for families to be able to visit in a timely manner, instead of travelling a long distance. These are the community concerns I was thinking about,” Dempsey told Lakeland This Week. “This is a highly valued service and perhaps the government should have done all that it could to maintain it on-site somehow.”
Although the announcement of the closure and construction was announced at the beginning of April, staff and clients at the centre weren’t given any lead time or offered much in the way of alternatives, he said.
“At that time the staff knew something was in the works because they were in an older building, and there were talks that they would either have a renovation or they would do a rebuild on-site and then seamlessly move from one building to the next,” — but the news of the complete closure has come as a shock to them, said Dempsey.
Staff cuts
The province is scheduled to meet with staff members working at the facility sometime in May to shed light on how employees will be impacted — but after meeting with unionized workers a few days after the announcement, some employees were told their jobs could end as early as this summer.
There are currently 27 staff at the Lac La Biche YAC who will be directly affected by the closure. Of those 27, there are 14 who are waged staff members including child and youth care counsellors, support workers, and a food services providers. The remaining 13 include other child and youth counsellors as well as administrative and support personnel.
For the full-time staff, little has been detailed since the early April announcement.
“Since then, there has been an informal meeting between staff and the employer but there is nothing in writing yet,” said Dempsey, there are preliminary suggestions about staff relocation, but no confirmations yet by the provincial government.
Union concerns
Another concern for unionized staff who could come back to the centre after it re-opens, is what will they be coming back to? Will their jobs be the same? Will the services be the same? For the union representatives, the possibility of the centre transitioning from a government-run facility with unionized workers to a privately-run organization is a concern, said Dempsey.
“That always means there is a change to the services that are delivered. That means it will be delivered at the lowest cost model which can result in a loss of staff and training too,” he said. “We have seen this in long-term continuing care when they go from public to private and I’m sure we’ll see it in social services too.”
A collateral concern from those unknowns is whether or not there will be properly trained staff available to fill the needed positions. If current staff transition to other careers or communities, there may be difficulties finding new staff in the new facility.
Moving ahead
What's next? Dempsey has contacted government ministers, local elected officials including Lac La Biche County Mayor Paul Reutov and newly-elected MLA Brian Jean.
He hopes that local pressure will show the provincial government that more needs to be done to keep the services of the local facility operating. He says the most important people in all of this are the youth. Staffing and community support are also going to see huge effects of the closure.
“I also want to keep the government vigilant and let them know we are watching them and doing whatever we can to help our members as well the community because our members are here,” he said.
In a public announcement on April 14, Alberta’s minister of Children's Services Rebecca Shulz said the renovations are part of more than $140 million set aside in the province’s 2022 budget to improve services for children. The renovations for the Lac La Biche facility are part of a $73.5 million commitment by the Province that will also see Edmonton’s Yellowhead Youth Centre renovated. The projected costs for that project is listed at $55.1 million. It is not known if the Yellowhead centre will also be closing for the construction period.
The funding and upgrades, says Shulz “significant investments” to improve mental health and addiction care and help youth and young adults recover from the challenges they face.
