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Province plans youth detox facility

By: Bruce Owen

Tuesday, Jun. 12, 2012 at 7:38 AM | Comments: 0

YOUNG people who are picked up by police while drunk or high on drugs will no longer be held at the Manitoba Youth Centre under a provincial plan to build a detox facility in St. Boniface.

Healthy Living Minister Jim Rondeau said Monday the centre, slated to open early next year, will house several programs that deal with youth substance abuse. The Catholic Health Corporation and Marymound are also involved in the project. Marymound has operated a five-bed youth drug-stabilization unit since 2006, but not for youth who are held under the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act (IPDA).

"Right now, we have three separate programs," Rondeau said. "We have the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act, we have some other programs we offer through Marymound and the Behavioural Health Foundation, and we're going to put them all together."

Operating the centre, to be located in a renovated warehouse on Provencher near Archibald, is forecast to cost more than $1 million a year, he added.

Marymound CEO Ian Hughes said its program will be expanded to 10 beds, with two used for IPDA cases.

He and Rondeau said the new centre will end a long-standing police practice of holding intoxicated youth under 18 at the Manitoba Youth Centre.

The facility, which hasn't been announced by the province, was mentioned in the Manitoba ombudsman's 2011 annual report, released Monday.

Since 1998, the ombudsman's office has criticized the detention of intoxicated youth at the MYC, a jail, even if they haven't been charged. Adults are detained at the Main Street Project.

The ombudsman said intoxicated youth are in need of care and a safe place where they can be supervised until they can be safely released.

Only youth that pose a public safety risk will continue to go to the MYC.

Both the province and City of Winnipeg have tried for years to end the use of the MYC for youth to sober up.

Police take an average of 155 youth a year to the MYC for supervision until a responsible adult is found.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

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