Keeping at-risk teens from running away a challenge, says shelter and foster mom

Keeping at-risk youth from running away is a challenge that outreach workers and foster parents say they often face.

New details about the last hours of Tina Fontaine's life, as well as riverbank searches finding clothes and other items belonging to girls, have renewed concerns about vulnerable teenagers on the city's streets.

Young people seeking a safe place for a few nights can go to Macdonald Youth Services' emergency youth shelter on Mayfair Avenue.

"They're really appreciative because some of the homes they come from … sometimes they don't even have a bed to sleep in," said Darrell Fedoruk, who works at the shelter.

The shelter offers beds, showers and three square meals a day, and Fedoruk said teens who stay there can escape from issues they are running away from.

"There's sexual exploitation, there's gang affiliation, there's just normal parenting conflict out there," he said.

But what happens when those teens want to go back onto the streets and into risky lifestyles?

"We try to make it as welcoming experience as possible. We explain our services in great detail, we encourage them to stay," Fedoruk said.

"If they do choose to leave — again, we're a voluntary place — if they choose to leave, we do follow-up calls to the proper authorities, whether it's Winnipeg police, CFS, parents."

Macdonald Youth Services CEO Erma Chapman says staff do everything they can to convince the most vulnerable youth not to leave, but they cannot force them to stay.

"I've seen staff follow kids down the road to the bus and lose them, but all the while trying to re-engage them," she said.

It's a familiar struggle for a foster mother who CBC News is not naming to protect her foster children.

"I mean one time, yeah, I had to physically stand in front of the door and say, 'Please don't leave. Like, I am here. Tell me whatever you need and I will help you,'" she said.

Back at the shelter, Chapman said staff focus on reasoning with teens to stay.

"You're here now, you've made a really, really good choice in your life, so what's your next step? Because we know you can do this," she said.