Edmonton youth worker tweets about at-risk teens

Drug abuse. Prostitution. Homelessness. Poverty.

If you scroll through the Twitter feed of Edmonton youth worker Mark Cherrington, this is what you see.

Cherringtonhas been a youth worker for Legal Aid Alberta for 20 years. A year and a half ago he started tweeting about his work.

As an advocate for youth, hesays Twitter isanother tool in his toolbox.

Cherringtonposts are hard to ignore.They often contain graphic descriptions of situations and photos that show the effects ofviolence, social issues and poverty.

Im just using social media to express a demographic that is very marginalized and people dont understand, he said.

Cherringtons gritty tweets have been getting a lot of attention online. And that's the point.

Hehasnearly 3,500 followers includingthe Premier of Alberta and the mayor of Edmonton.

Im always respectful of young people's confidentiality and their privacy. Im just the messenger boy and lots of times theyre asking me to send the message.

Cherrington says over 80 per cent of the youth he works with are aboriginal.

In Alberta, the incidence of poverty among aboriginal children is 41 per cent, relative to the Alberta overall gure of 17 per cent.

If you go back to my tweet last [month] I was at Hobbema reserve where a girl had to jump out the bathroom window, said Cherrington.

Cherrington officially clocks out at 5 p.m.,but he volunteers his services after hours. The night before our interview, hewas woken up by a phone call in themiddle of the night.

"She was a child and she was stuck at a johns house. She was trapped in a john's house, and I just had to go," he said. "She wasn't safe."

He added, "The problem is they have no trust with the police, and police have no discretion with warrants. These kids would rather bleed to death than phone the police."

Cherringtons office is filled with supplies donated by his Twitter followers. He's stocked up on baby formula, diapers andcondoms.

During our interview,a young First Nations mother who we can't identifycame to his office to pickup diapers for her baby.

He seems really dedicated to youth and helping youthand we need more people like that in society instead of people giving up on people," she said.

But not everyone is praising Cherringtons tweets.

Preston Guno is a former youth worker and now the executive coordinator for the Northern and First Nations Child and Family Service Council in British Columbia. He said Cherringtons tweets arent advocacy, they're exploitation.

"[He]is taking some very tragic circumstances, personal stories of hardships from young people and using them to throw it on social media to try and catch peoples attention under the guise of bringing issues forward that society is not aware of," said Guno.

Guno thinks Cherrington could be doing more to help the youth by addressing systemic issues.

"He can do better in terms of calling strategic meetings, setting up youth to empower themselves to bring these issues forward to the decision makers. There is a lot he can do, but it appears he is looking for the fastest, easiest and most self serving way to bring this forward, he said.

But Cherrington views his work as empowerment.

He said he's "giving a voice and providing a different perspective that you just dont find in mainstream society giving an opportunity to liftup the carpet so people can look at the dirt."

Cherringtonisn't sure how long he will stay on Twitter but, for now, he's proud of the work he's doing.

"It's crossing that barrier, and Im able to get that message out," he said.