Over the first two years of the current term, Parksville city council has made an effort to encourage youth involvement. Now in their final year they hope to establish an ongoing program.
Councilor’s Carrie Powell-Davidson and Teresa Patterson brought a motion to council recently, to establish a youth advocacy program (YAP) to bring together a number of ideas.
“That’s just a working title,” Powell-Davidson said, pointing out the acronym for the pilot program fits with the two way communication they are trying to develop.
“We want to engage the people involve — in this case the youth — in developing it,” explaining the idea is to bring young people into the initial stages to develop it in a way that suits youth.”
The overall goal of the program will be to retain and attract youth to the Parksville area, through four basic avenues.
Considering the trouble the city has had filling key staff positions, Powell-Davidson said they want to “build some,” or encourage local youth to consider jobs with the city.
This might include going into the schools to explain the perks, good pay and security of a city job, as well as bringing youth into city hall.
Another avenue will be encouraging “the leaders of tomorrow,” through the long talked about idea of having non-voting youth representatives sit on city council and act as a liaison between the city and young people.
Third is simply to make sure the city gets to hear the voice of all demographics in the community. That includes the hope of increasing voter turn out among younger voters.
“Kids are so intelligent and have a lot of important concerns,” she said.
Powell-Davidson believes the program will tie in nicely with the leadership program at Ballenas Secondary and other moves council has made such as holding two meetings in the school.
Council unanimously supported Powell-Davidson and Patterson meeting with school representatives, bouncing ideas around and reporting back to the rest of council. They hope to have something running by next fall.
“It’s a real win/win situation,” she said, pointing out the idea is ready to go with little staff time.”
writer@pqbnews.com