Now, with drugs and alcohol added into the mix, the situation is escalating. The father defined it as"extreme."
A document called ‘Informed Consent with Children and Youth: Practice Guidelines for Social Work,’ states that in terms of counselling or therapy, N.L. doesn’t have any legislation that specifies the age of consent. “The problem with mental health issues is they can get conflated with criminality. The fact that a particular youth has offended criminally, it's not likely a reflection of him or his family,” de Jong said.
“A lot of them are lost and they have no sense of connection in their community and they find connection with other youth who are on the margins and those youth maybe are involved in criminal activities,” de Jong said.