The coordinator of the Headway program in Steinbach is very happy to hear they will be getting annual funding from the provincial government. Headway involves a coordinated approach among various agencies to help teens who are in trouble to turn their lives around. The money was announced in the provincial budget Monday. The government says the specific amount will be revealed in the coming weeks. Brenda Brown says she had not been expecting this.

Brenda Brown"I was quite surprised when I heard the government was coming up with support for our program. So that's really neat. We have been meeting at the head office of the RCMP, at D Division, along with a bunch of other community mobilization groups and we actually formally created a network. The Minister of Justice, as well as the Deputy Minister of Justice, were at our last two meetings and so I think they have really seen the benefit in it by just taking part in our meeting there and hearing the whole push behind it."

Brown explains what it will mean for her to get annual government funding.

"Being able to count on annual funding is really big. I am the only staff person at Headway. And so for me to be able to concentrate on my clients and families and be able to pour myself into that part of my work and not have to worry about the fundraising aspect as much, that will certainly help me to do my job better."

Brown says the Headway program is having a lot of success since it started up in January 2016.

"We've helped about 35 children to date. The average youth is in a program like Headway for between 18 and 24 months. So now we've reached our two-year mark and within the last two months, I've been able to close eight files, six of which were because of stability. So these kids are certainly doing a lot of hard work and making a lot of progress towards stability and they're all doing very well."