Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 11/98) - Teen prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse, family violence -- not only has Tree of Peace youth worker Greg Krivda seen it all, he's lived it.

Krivda spent 14 years on the streets and "in the system."

These days, his understanding of what many of Yellowknife's less fortunate teens are facing goes a long way in helping him reach these kids.

As an alcohol and drug field worker, Krivda routinely manages a client caseload of 12 to 15 youth per month, or 144 to 180 kids a year.

The list of problems he sees is a lengthy one and Krivda cites a well designed and adequately funded inpatient (residential) treatment service for drug-addicted youth as a top priority for Yellowknife.

"I've built up a good rapport with a lot of the hard-core kids on the street," says Krivda.

"They're coming in here looking for help, but they need more than we can offer right now."

Krivda says teenage prostitution in Yellowknife is being fuelled by an increasing number of teens becoming hooked on crack cocaine.

One teenager was servicing 20 clients a day to feed her cocaine habit.

"I go out on a Friday afternoon to talk to my youth and while I'm working, they're working the cars," sighs Krivda, with more than a little pain in his voice.

"It can be unreal sometimes because it's people you least expect.

"You say, 'Holy cow, not that guy.' It has to be exposed and stopped."

Krivda says the problem with local youth is reaching a crisis. He's frustrated by the fact all he can do right now is listen to their problems.

"If a kid comes to me right now with a drug problem, I couldn't get them into any kind of rehab at all.

"If they were 18 or older, I could put them in a centre in five minutes."

RCMP Sgt. Marlin Degrand is sympathetic to many of the problems today's youth face.

He says the RCMP does everything it can to stop crime affecting youth, but some crime is always going to go undetected.

"When it comes to drugs and prostitution, we're trying to develop as many sources on the street as we can," says Degrand.

"Once you have more than just the police's eyes watching, it makes it a lot harder to commit crime."

Degrand says with drug addiction and prostitution, there is a social aspect just as important as the criminal aspect.

"In addition to punishing someone involved with self-destructive behaviour, you have to look for some way to help them," says Degrand.

"We're not trained to be counsellors, but we'd certainly know where to turn them on to the people who can do the helping and that's where we go to."

Krivda, however, says part of the problem is that the proper centres don't exist in Yellowknife to turn to.

"A lot of these kids feel they're alone and it benefits them greatly when they're put in with their peers and get to hear their problems," says Krivda.

"The families also have to be involved to support these kids. If we had a centre here I could have 15 kids in there in two weeks.

"These kids are our future and we need the whole community working together to help them."