Mr. Mick Ferron:

I am aware of projects which set out to target those hard-to-reach young people. Ostensibly, and this is obviously relevant to the committee, the focus was on young people at risk or involved in drug use or in drug-dealing behaviour. When that was being set up, it was about providing a consistent presence with consistent staff members across the week and at evenings and weekends, looking to build a relationship and getting to be known. Some of it was about trying to offer something to young people who, in many cases, were making a conscious decision not to engage in youth work or anything else and who were likely to be regarded as not in education, employment or training, NEET. For the most part, they were, from their own perspective, at work doing what they were doing and tied to certain places at certain times. That relationship took months to develop, to get a sense of where young people were at and for the detached youth work team not to be seen as a threat.