Families, seniors, youth — Westlock and District Family and Community Support Services provides something for all of them, bringing the community together to serve the community itself.
FCSS executive director Tracy Proulx made two presentations last week — one to Clyde council April 8 and another to Westlock County council April 9 — to give an overview of what exactly the organization does for its community partners.
The local FCSS branch is paid for through an 80 per cent contribution from the province and 20 per cent to municipalities. In this case, the Town of Westlock, Westlock County and Village of Clyde share that 20 per cent cost.
FCSS is also a made-in-Alberta idea, providing the communities with opportunities to design and deliver social programs that are preventative in nature.
“Prevention is the key, and to provide it at the earliest opportunity to promote and enhance social well being among families and individuals in the community,” Proulx told county council.
“Our mandate is to provide those preventative services and create programs that provide opportunities to intervene before there is a crisis.”
Services fall into four main categories, said Proulx. Namely, information and referral services, community development, adult and senior programming and family and youth programming.
“Adults and seniors programming definitely make up a majority of our clients. We take pride in the care that we take with our seniors,” said Proulx.
FCSS staff spend a lot of time assisting with forms, helping seniors navigate their way through the benefits they are entitled to and filling out the correct forms.
Youth are also a focus of FCSS programming.
The family school liaison program, Coats for Kids, Caring for Kids, Tools for School, the Light Up Parade and Skate with Santa are all programs and activities FCSS is involved with.
Community partnerships also contribute vastly to all that FCSS can offer, said Proulx. Teaming up with the Pembina Hills School Division, Parent Link, the FASD and Primary Care networks and the Hope Resource Centre and Conex, to name just a few, helps all of the organizations involved support the community in their own unique ways.
One of the big events FCSS throws is its annual free barbeque, which is held in partnership with several community organizations. This year’s barbeque will take place at a yet-to-be-determined date in July.
“It’s nice to hear about all that is available to us in our community,” said reeve Lou Hall after Proulx’s presentation.
“It’s a very worthwhile program in our community and I’m honoured to be on the board to be able to see the good work that is done in the communities.”
“Our door is always open,” said Proulx. “Stop by anytime.”
Volunteer base
It’s quite an endeavour to support families and the community at large and FCSS couldn’t do it without the hard work of volunteers, said Proulx.
And those volunteers will be in the spotlight June 6 at the annual volunteer appreciation event which will be held at Memorial Hall.
Much of its programming is volunteered-based, like the volunteer income tax program, which served 731 individuals in the region in 2018. The volunteer driver program also served 116 individuals and the home support program served 1,510.
“We have a huge volunteer base,” said Proulx.
Programs like Meals on Wheels rely heavily on volunteers as do seniors excursions and Santa’s Anonymous.
“One of the things we see, not just locally, but provincially, is the growing seniors population and the need for services, so that is something we’ve historically done really well,” said Proulx.
Santa’s Anonymous does not qualify for core funding, so is entirely donation-driven and sees volunteers assist in gathering and selecting gifts for program participants. Last year saw a spike in participants as 448 people were served.
