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REPORTS OF PROJECTS AND COMMITTEES

CIRC is celebrating its 20th anniversary of service in the provision of information and referral in Thunder Bay!

The Advisory Committee had the talents of the following volunteer members in 2002:
Lisa Schmidt Zainuddin Waliji Janette Bax Sharon Taylor
Kathy Thompson Leslie Piekarz Adam Angus Lyn Reid
Lee Stones Vern Cameron Alison Denton

The committee was an excellent source of information, new ideas, and input into CIRC activities.

In 2002 the advisory committee was instrumental in:

1.) Collaborating with the LSPC and the United Way on Project 211 (Thunder Bay).
2-1-1 is a highly visible, easy-to-remember, abbreviated dialing code for access to information about health, community, and human services.

2.) Assisting with the conceptualization of the recently published Directory of Community Services complete with a questionnaire surveying purchaser’s preferences for future versions.

3.) Establishing terms of reference for the CIRC advisory committee

4.) Collaborating on solutions to inquiries where gaps in community/provincial services existed (How can we help?
Who should get the referral? What is the desired outcome?)

5.) Participating in the Homelessness Initiative- Education Component

6.) Continuing to envision how technology and CIRC will continue to play a critical role in information and knowledge transfer CIRC is an accredited member of Inform Ontario, Inform Canada, AIRS (Alliance of Information Systems) and a member of the Community Information Online Consortium.

The year 2002 has been a very exciting time for CIRC and LSPC. It has been great working with the program staff and volunteers over the past year. Thank you for your time and energy devoted to empowering people by increased access to timely and effective information, which is a catalyst in a person’s or families lives.

Respectfully submitted,
Jodi Carlson, CIRC Chair 2002

SUCCESSFUL AGING PROJECT REPORT

This past year the priority has been the web site; most of our on-going work entails getting the public to the site and having our site known to the major search engines.

Before that could happen, our primary task was to pilot the materials on the site, and to ensure we had the Successful Aging Quiz tested and validated. Months were spent on developing new materials and revamping the existing topic areas. Early this year, after much input from site users, we rewrote each of the site pages, and added several new options. The site is doing extremely well and we have a large data base of people who have taken our Quiz and who use the site as a safe and reliable resource for health and lifestyle information. When you visit www. successfulaging.ca you will find the following:
12 minute Quiz
Health Tips
Health Quotes
Question and Answer Option – site users ask about a variety of wellness issues
Weight tracking - this allows users to set up a graph to monitor their weight
Editorial Page
Discussion Forum
Healthy Recipes
Jokes & Humor
Programs area- where you can access detailed information on Stress Management, Nutrition, Memory and Thinking, Exercise and more.
Meet the Partners Page

We are always researching and reworking to keep topics current. To this end we are developing a new program area on Successful Retirement and are excited to be adding an on-line journal on Aging Research within a few months.
Please check out our site – using www.successfulaging.ca will be a positive addition to your health and well-being.
We are much indebted to LSPC for their support and to the generosity of Manulife Financial, and the Volunteer Action On-Line funding from the Ministry of Citizenship.

Lee Stones
Successful Aging Coordinator

The LSPC IT committee, in its inaugural year, has regularly met on a monthly basis. Committee members include Carol Rusak, Rae Anne Honey, Mark Walther, Duncan Adams, Marie Klassen and Sean Andrew-Cotter. To assist in fulfilling I.T. committee objectives we have hired Mark Walther for 10 hours per week. He will provide training and support to the staff and support to the committee.
The purpose of the I.T. Committee was to investigate and implement technology for the LSPC through an I.T. plan. The following is a list of the recommendations currently in the implementation process to date:
Purchase of CIOC software for the CIRC to streamline data management;
Hosting of the CIRC information on a public web site;
Purchase of a network server to secure, consolidate and coordinate all information storage;
Purchase of software such as Windows Small Business Server, Symantec Antivirus Corporate, Windows XP, and Windows Client Access Licences;
Rewiring of the office for network cabling;
and developing computer and network usage policies.
We look forward to an interesting year in implementing the recommendations and continuing to oversee all I.T. issues.

Sean Andrew-Cotter
I.T. Committee Chair

FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE REPORT

The Fundraising Committee has been actively involved in several successful events again this past year - Christmas Fest, Tag Days and bingos.

We are such fundraisers that we incorporated it in the retirement party we had for Brenda Reimer in June of 2002.

We applied for and were most pleased to receive funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation for a community relations person to coordinate and implement a development strategy including a marketing plan, long-term fundraising plan, volunteer recruitment and to assist the LSPC to acquire additional sponsors and members.

Joanne Zamparo, Chair of Fundraising Committee, created an opportunity for us. She got LSPC's name on the list for payroll deduction/donation. Lakehead University staff can now designate payroll deductions as donations to LSPC. We also created a partnership with the Italian Cultural Society to hold a 'community Spaghetti Supper' in April. We plan to co-host an annual community supper which will provide the LSPC with an annual donation. Joanne has recently resigned from the Fundraising Committee. We thank her for her work and we will miss her energy and enthusiasm.

Thanks to all volunteers who have worked tirelessly for the Lakehead Social Planning Council by giving their time and effort at all our fundraising events. We could not succeed without you. We also thank those sponsors who have participated in fundraising events.

Rae Anne Honey

THUNDER BAY alterNET
Community Access Project

In 2002, Lakehead Social Planning Council wrapped up the Thunder Bay Alternet Project, with funding from Industry Canada. This was, and is, a successful project that has brought significant benefits to the community. The Alternet Project was a consortium of 26 Agencies, headed by L.S.P.C. that participated in the Industry Canada project to bring free, high-speed internet services to various locations in Thunder Bay. Sometimes known as the Community Access Project, or CAP, this project put computers in 26 different organisations and locations in the city: 55-plus Centre, Boys and Girls Club, l’Association des Francophones du Nord Ouest de l’Ontario, and Regional Multi-Cultural Youth Centre, just to list a sample.
The project Coordinator was Keith Milne, and the Administrative Assistant was Shirley White; they were on staff until August 2002, and L.S.P.C. thanks them for their service with this project. (Shirley was so committed to our Agency that she returned as a volunteer.) The project budget of $425,000 was spent on hardware and software, agency installation and upgrades, and staff and consultant time. In each of the organisations, there were computer(s) purchased and installed to allow the public, or the clients of the particular Agency, free access to high speed internet access.
Clients who use the computers have access to the internet, e-mail for contact with friends and family, employment search functions, and job applications. Nearly all of the sites have reported success stories, where clients have used the CAP sites to find job vacancies and actually obtain employment; maintain contact with family in remote communities, and establish job skills.
The project officially ended on December 31, and the good news is that every agency in the partnership is still open and will be maintaining their CAP site into the next year. For LSPC, our site remains open 5 hours a day, and there are often line-ups to use the computers. It is a popular and practical resource for the clients who come by our office. The other task for LSPC is to complete the tasks as the Project co-ordinator and banker, so that the remaining funds payable on the project are obtained from Industry Canada, and are disbursed to our partner agencies.
This was another successful project completed by LSPC.

Submitted by Duncan Adams, Executive Director

SOCIAL & ECONOMIC INCLUSION INITIATIVE

Social and Economic Inclusion Initiative (S.E.I.I.) is a program from the Population and Public Health Branch of Health Canada, administered by the Halton Social Planning Council for the Social Planning Network of Ontario for Phase 1. Now that’s quite a mouthful of words and initials, but it is an exciting project that has come to Thunder Bay, one of 6 locations in Ontario, through the L.S.P.C.

Lakehead Social Planning Council began our involvement with S.E.I.I. in 2002 by hosting a series of roundtable presentations with Peter Clutterbuck. Peter has published several articles on Social Capital, and Social Inclusion, and was hired by the Social Planning Network of Ontario to travel to several communities to assess needs and interests. His second visit, in August, brought 15 community agency leaders to a meeting, to discuss Thunder Bay’s opportunities to develop a project tackling an issue involving one of Health Canada’s 14 social determinants of health, in a way that would address social, cultural, or economic isolation.

We followed the usual community planning model: hosting meetings, inviting participants, defining the problems and outlining the possibilities. When a consensus was reached as to a topic area, involving hard to serve, marginalised 16 – 17 yr. old youth, we formed a sub-Committee to write a proposal! We were one of 6 Social Planning Councils to be approved for Phase 1, October 2002 to March 2003. Staff hired for this phase of the Project were Scott Bulmer and John Saxberg, and their work was very important and appreciated. Their task was to develop a proposal for Phase 2, defining a specific project which has been called “Closing the Distance” to address the needs of marginalised youth in relation to social inclusion. This included some community development in meeting with service providers and focus groups of young people. A proposal has been developed and submitted in 2003, to develop a Youth Action Network, and we are very confident of Health Canada funding for this project for 2003 – 2004.

L.S.P.C. extends thanks to community agency staff who contributed to the project’s development and for serving on various sub-committees. We are so pleased with this project, and confident of our partnership with Health Canada that the Closing the Distance project is the theme of our 2002 Annual General Meeting.

Submitted by Duncan Adams
Executive Director

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FUND & MINOR CAPITAL PROJECT

The Emergency Assistance Fund and the Minor Capital project were part of the Thunder Bay Homelessness Initiative, funded by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC).

In both parts of this project, the Lakehead Social Planning Council acted as a co-ordinator and banker to various community resources and organisations in Thunder Bay, and this coalition of direct service providers either developed their capacity to serve homeless people or provided direct services to homeless clients.
In the first part of this Project, the Minor Capital portion, repairs and improvements were arranged at several shelters in Thunder Bay. These included Community Residence Women’s Shelter, the Homeless Shelter “Shelter House”, John Howard residence “Howard House”, and Beendigen, a shelter for Aboriginal women. A total of $28,000 was spent on items ranging from new flooring, VCT/television and computer, kitchen appliances, and painting. This project strengthened the infrastructure and maintained/enhanced the physical plant of the shelters who provide a direct service to homeless clients. This project was mostly completed by September 2002, and was viewed as very successful by each of the individual Shelters.

The second part of this project was the Emergency Assistance Fund, designed to provide direct assistance for homeless or imminently homeless clients. A Steering Group was established from the Housing Coalition, and a decision tree was developed to guide the granting of funds. Four organisations functioned as delivery points: Lutheran Community Care Centre, Shelter House, Community Residence Women’s Shelter, and the Salvation Army. Assistance was provided to those needing help from several major categories: emergency shelter in hotels, motels and rented accommodation; emergency travel including relocating women fleeing abuse and bus/taxi to medical appointments; food and clothing; prescriptions and medical supplies; costs for identity retrieval; and infants and baby supplies such as diapers and formula.

The project began quite slowly in January, with very low levels of assistance paid out, partly due to ambiguity of acceptable support items, and also to lack of information about this new project. By July, the cash slow forecast was such that $15,000 of the funding was re-allocated back to the community homelessness initiative. Then the project ‘took off’, in part to the effects of the Education Component, and with the hard work of our partners in the coalition. The staff at the shelters knew and predicted that there would be an exponential demand for these services, and they were right. The project was originally expected to end in March 2003, but by December 31 the project had spent >90% of the budget and L.S.P.C. was working with the partners to wind up the project in mid-January 2003, to ensure that there was no deficit.

The partners thought that this was a good project: it put $55,000 directly into the lives of homeless or imminently homeless clients. It documented significant gaps for homeless people and provided direct support to meet those gaps. This was a difficult project to administer, with an early lack of clarity of acceptable supports, cumbersome procedures designed to protect against misuse, and a delay in reporting making current financial reports hard to quantify. On balance, the benefits outweighed the problems, and many homeless, marginalized people in Thunder Bay were supported directly with products and services.

Submitted by
Duncan Adams
Executive Director

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