Chatham-Kent's Children’s Treatment Centre is expanding one of its programs, which helps youth after graduating high school.
The Life Links program serves youth with special needs and recently received a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Executive Director Mike Genge says the Treatment Centre will receive $287,000 over the next three years.
"This extra money will help us to keep expanding so that we can serve more kids," says Genge. "Also, we're serving more kids with Autism as well so we're expanding in that area [too]."
Genge says before receiving the grant money, they were only able to serve those up to 18 years old in the program, now the age limit is 21 years old.
"It's really out there to help us expand our case load and decrease our wait times for assessments and sessions," says Genge. "Sessions in the sense of us being able to do things with these kids, to teach them life skills and to help them as they progress forward within their life."
The program has been running since 2010.
The CK Treatment Centre is one of many non-profit initiatives receiving support from the province.
The Ontario Minister of Tourism Culture and Sport recently announced the distribution of over one million dollars towards 152 non-profit initiatives - six of which are located in the Essex-Kent-Lambton area.