Currently, the fund provides $2.9 million to support the 42 projects listed below. In addition, 5 projects that focus on Aboriginal populations are supported by the fund and administered through VCH Aboriginal Services.
Alzheimer Society of BC
Fostering Self-Help, A Community Oriented Dementia Support Program
Targets Chinese families who experience dementia. Provides a link to Chinese-language programs and services of the Alzheimer Society of B.C. including Support Groups, 1:1 Support, Educational Programs, Information Services and Safely Home/BC Photo Registry.
BC Association of Specialized Victim Assistance and Counseling Programs
Safe Choices: Support and Education Program
Addresses the health and safety (physical, sexual, and emotional) of women experiencing abuse in same-sex relationships. The project offers options for intervention and support. It works to remove barriers to health care and social services for women in abusive same-sex relationships in Vancouver by offering information, health education, community-based support groups, and training for service providers.
BC Coalition of People with Disabilities
Community and Residents Mentor Association (CARMA)
Provides peer support for people who are currently living in the George Pearson Centre (GPC), institutional facility who wish to explore options for community living or improve the quality of their lives in the facility. Enables Pearson residents to participate in the planning and decision-making using the Eden Alternatives model at GPC. It also provides ongoing support for people as they make the transition to community, enabling them to explore options for housing, supported living and involvement in social activities that build bridges to the community by identifying the capacities and gifts of the Pearson residents and creating opportunities for these gifts to be shared.
BC Paraplegic Association
Peer Support Network for People with Disabilities
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Supports people with disabilities (especially people with spinal cord injuries) in achieving independence and community integration through the development and implementation of a volunteer peer support network. Provides recruitment, screening, training, matching, and ongoing support of peer support volunteers who assist newly injured people as they move through the rehab process and become integrated into the community.
BC Schizophrenia Society
Family Respite Service
Strengthens familyies’ capacity to cope with serious mental illness, by delivering cost-effective and coordinated respite service strategies designed to help the family unit independently manage their mental health needs.
BC Seniors Services and Housing Information Society
Seniors Housing Information Services
Trains volunteers to provide a full spectrum of information and education services to enhance the awareness of service providers, housing managers and the public about the housing and related health needs of seniors and others on fixed incomes, thereby helping them to live independently.
Bella Coola Valley Sustainable Agricultural Society
Community Food Action Initiative
Promotes food security awareness and capacity building strategies to engage community members while establishing related initiatives in the community.
Boys' and Girls' Clubs of Greater Vancouver
Parents Together: Vietnamese Mothers Group
Provides culturally appropriate peer-support and training in weekly sessions for Vietnamese mothers, enhancing parental understanding and confidence to deal with teen challenges. Reduces parent-teen conflict and encourages cross-cultural friendships and parenting support by helping families feel more connected to each other and their new community.
Supports and coordinates local food security initiatives and works to improve access to community health, social services and community-based programs for vulnerable populations living in Grandview Woodlands neighbourhood.
Helps mental health consumers improve the quality of their life by becoming active volunteers, contributing to their community. An important outcome of this project is to help lessen the impact of stigma and fear that surround mental illness by showing just how productive and helpful Consumers can be. The program provides a means for mental health consumers to achieve a greater degree of independence and community integration, and to reach personal rehabilitative goals.
Encourages Chinese mental health consumers and their families to participate in culturally appropriate programming and support activities.
Supports mental health consumers to collaborate to develop community economic development projects which help to enhance skills, self-esteem, and cultivate employment opportunities, thereby decreasing isolation. These economic development projects are known as Consumer Run Businesses. They are community-based businesses that are owned, operated and hired mental health consumers. They offer a supportive and flexible workplace that supports opportunity for personal capacity building and connection to community.
Distributes reclaimed food stuffs from local grocery stores to agencies serving low income individuals and families.
Provides early intervention and rehabilitation services for people with visual impairment. All programming supports personal capacity to live independently to the best of one’s ability.
Provides opportunities for young Aboriginal fathers and mothers to build support networks for themselves and their young children through a fathers’ support program, a family drop-in, and peer mentor training program which increases parenting skills and promotes Aboriginal cultural.
Improves the overall health and well being of children and youth in Renfrew-Collingwood by developing and coordinating a community based drug and alcohol prevention program. Using peer-led education programs engages youth in leadership roles, provides information that enables children and youth to make positive choices, and builds positive relationships between children, youth, parents and community members around drug and alcohol issues.
Increases opportunities for pre-school age children to grow and develop readiness for group care, pre-school and kindergarten. Reduces related care-giving stress by providing a child-minding service on a drop-in basis that offers parents and caregivers time apart from their children.
Promotes food security awareness and establishes interest, support and partnerships for the development of community gardens in Vancouver.
Provides a community kitchen program for low-income, disadvantaged, and recent immigrant community members while concentrating on developing language skills and facilitating integration into Canadian society. Builds community capacity of these newcomers to work together in addressing hunger and increasing health and nutrition in a multicultural and multi-linguistic environment.
Provides a safe environment and an extensive, coordinated, and comprehensive social support network for street youth through the engagement of youth volunteers and peer mentors. Assists youth in moving off the street, supports them in embracing healthier lifestyles through skill development and employment initiatives. Youth who are part of the program also take an active role in advising Directions Youth Services on their programs and procedures.
Supports new mothers and young pregnant women who have experienced trauma in their early lives by offering self-help and peer support training. The program focuses on increasing the mother’s ability to form healthy and sustaining relationships throughout their lives.
Provides English language training within the context of learning about local health care system, pre-school health issues, community supports and programs which help to alleviate poverty and encourage community involvement in food security initiatives and pre-school family programs.
Creates opportunities for youth at risk to increase their ability to support others in their community and to develop their capacity to be leaders and role models.
In partnership with the Vancouver Police Department, provides supportive intervention to women and children who are directly affected by domestic violence. Builds organizational capacity to respond effectively to domestic violence, through working in partnerships at both the service and community development levels.
Improves the personal health and social environment of single Aboriginal and immigrant mothers and children attending Grandview/?Uuqinak'uuh elementary school. Supports involvement in cultivating a vegetable garden and green space on the school grounds & holding healthy food preparation workshops and traditional community meals.
Helps to alleviate some of the impact that poverty has on health by coordinating community kitchens that focus on healthier living skills. Participants experience increased intake of nutritious food and knowledge of their health in addition to connecting with peers and their community. Examples of skills acquired during community kitchens include food preparation, nutritious eating on a budget, socializing and coping with specific health issues including diabetes, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and addiction.
Promotes food security awareness and capacity building strategies to engage community members while establishing related initiatives in the community.
Targets reduction of isolation and promotes integration of seniors into the community, many of whom are living alone in the Hastings/Sunrise neighborhood. Integrates and offers health related services and information sessions for seniors. Helps to support and maintain independent, healthy and meaningful living for isolated seniors. Seniors play an active role in the design and implementation of the program.
Provides mental, physical and social support to marginalized immigrant and refugee women who are experiencing long-term and on-going challenges due to difficulties incurred during their integration process into Canadian society. Trains facilitators from immigrant and refugee communities to run peer support groups in their first language. Support groups focus on mental health promotion with an emphasis on early intervention and prevention of mental illness.
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Provides nutritious Kosher meals to groups of frail, isolated Jewish seniors. Decreases social isolation and encourage mental and social stimulation, as well as connections to community resources. Also fosters connections within the larger Jewish community.
Provides mental health consumers with meaningful work experience, thereby enhancing their quality of life, self-worth, involvement in the greater community, and self-reliance. Where feasible, encourages local businesses to hire mental health consumers.
Delivers low-cost community-based daily living supports for low-income, frail and isolated seniors living in Vancouver’s West Side and West End as well as Fairview Slopes/South Granville areas with the intention to assist seniors living independently in their own homes.
Provides training and support of volunteer peer support counsellors for seniors to reduce isolation and encourage engagement in community activities for low-income and isolated seniors living on the Westside of Vancouver.
Coordinates and supports a consortium of 15 Eastside agencies to provide Nobody’s Perfect Parenting Program targeting low-income and newcomer families. Group facilitation and training materials are provided in Cantonese, Spanish, Vietnamese and Punjabi.
Delivers financially accessible daily living support service for low income and isolated seniors living in Northeast Vancouver to assist them to live in their communities independently.
Promotes the physical, social, cultural, and mental well being of seniors living in Northeast Vancouver through opportunities in volunteering, participating in community programs and learning about relevant health issues in a cross-cultural environment. Engages trained seniors as volunteers in health promotion activities to help connect isolated seniors and immigrant seniors to their community and local resources.
Supports bereavement peer support groups and provides facilitator training in the grieving process to community agencies. Enable these agencies to provide assistance and support to their clients in the Downtown Eastside who are experiencing loss.
Improves the long-term health outcomes of adults using the emergency shelter and transitional housing programs by assisting them to access health and social services, by building their capacity to set and achieve personal goals and by stabilizing them in appropriate housing.
Provides parents with timely information on child development, prenatal to age five; involves them in parent-child activities that encourage language development, intellectual growth, social development and motor skills; and strengthens parent-child relationships. Monthly home visits, group parent meetings, health and developmental screening, appropriate referrals and connection to other community resources are key components of this program.
Offers training in, and knowledge of, traditional and alternative healing methods to control diabetes.
Provides a combination of accessible supports, education, information and referral services that reduce caregiver stress and contribute to the health of the participant caregiver as well as those in their care.
Prepares culturally appropriate training and education materials to be used to train immigrant women interested in becoming facilitators who will raise the awareness of their own communities regarding access to health care services.
Works to create an integrated and comprehensive approach to food security on the North Shore through the formation of a partnership of local services within a North Shore Food Security Advisory Council.
Promotes food security awareness and capacity building strategies to engage community members while establishing related initiatives on the Lower Sunshine Coast.
Provides at-risk-youth with meaningful volunteer opportunities in the Centre and in the community, thereby improving access and service provision to youth, and strengthening the capacity of youth to make healthy lifestyle decisions. Youth gain human service skills, develop a healthy social network, and work with other community members to address community issues. The program promotes leadership, communication, self-esteem, and self-efficacy for at-risk youth at the Broadway Youth Resource Centre.
Addresses the needs of aging and older LGTB people through age-specific and intergenerational program development and delivery, education within the LGTB communities and for service providers, and the development of transferable models for traditional agencies serving seniors. This program helps decrease isolation for aging and older LGTB people and builds community capacity through the provision of age specific assessment, counseling and referral, mentoring opportunities and cross-generational activities.
Promotes the health and well being of LGTB individuals and communities by facilitating participation in self-care and cultural activities, delivery of a range of volunteer-based services, and by increasing access and decreasing barriers through education and outreach within LGTB and mainstream communities.
Promotes self-help and peer support approaches aimed at building the capacity of individuals and communities; provides support and resources to self-help and peer support initiatives; and facilitates the development of supportive networks and community collaborations. In so doing, SHRA helps to facilitate healthy and responsive communities that are self-determining.
Provides mental health consumers with supportive, secure affordable accommodation within a facility and housing model that supports self-determination. Elements of this model include: democratic decision-making, community building events, life skills education and support, and becoming actively involved in all aspects of running the housing program
Promotes food security awareness and capacity building strategies to engage community members while establishing realted initiatives in the community.
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Assists individuals and families from diverse cultural backgrounds to receive the health services they require by helping to remove systemic barriers, enhancing their ability to participate in the health care systems at all levels, and promoting cross-cultural competence among healthcare providers.
Assist in alleviating barriers of accessing health care services by providing culturally and linquisitically appropriate support to culturally diverse community members who have children between the ages of 0-5 years.
Provides a coordinated service to seniors that facilitate their participation in a luncheon and activity program which incorporates socialization, education, and recreation for isolated seniors and enhance autonomous, independent living skills in a manner that is inclusive and representative of the community demographics.
Explores how involvement in the arts can improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable seniors. This initiative also supports the development of new knowledge and expertise in the fields of seniors’ wellness, chronic disease management, and community-engaged arts.
This three-year pilot project documents the impact of involvement in the arts on the physical health, mental health and social connections of participant seniors, facilitating their ability to “age in place”, building new expertise amongst senior workers and artists in Vancouver and on the North Shore.
Strengthens isolated families by increasing the capacity of parents to interact in their communities with the intention of positive outcomes for their children. This is implemented through recruiting parent volunteers and training them to become parent leaders and facilitators, and through regular Parent Support Network meetings.
Promotes food security awareness and capacity building strategies to engage community members while establishing related initiatives in Richmond.
Support and enhances the involvement of mental health consumers, using peer support processes and principles, within a mental health consumer organization. The Program builds and strengthens the capacity of consumers to have an effective voice in the community and in the design and delivery of mental health programs. This program offers supported volunteer opportunities for mental health consumers that enhance recovery, promote wellness, and build advocacy, employment and socializing skills.
Offers a peer support training program for Chinese speaking mental health consumers in Richmond.
Provides early intervention for children age 5 – 13 and increases the capacity of families and schools to manage moderate to severe social, emotional, behavioural and/or psychiatric difficulties, thus allowing the child to successfully return to or remain at their community school.
Promotes food security awareness and capacity building strategies to engage community members while establishing related initiatives along Sea to Sky Corridor.
Provides access to healthy food, offer skill-build opportunities, and improve the physical and social health of at-risk youth in Pemberton and Squamish.
Improves the health and wellness of members of the Sechelt Indian Band living with chronic health issues. The Program focuses on implementing a community-endorsed Self-Care Management plan, health client support and increased physical activity for clients.
Delivers a financially accessible daily living support service for isolated seniors living in South Vancouver and Midtown particularly those living on fixed incomes assisting them to live in their communities independently.
Assists seniors in South Vancouver who are unable to access appropriate resources or participate in community activities due to chronic illness, frailty, or mental health concerns. Provides volunteer opportunities for seniors who wish to act in a peer capacity and provides information, referrals to partner organizations, and ongoing support to seniors in need.
Builds capacity of community members with chronic disease and their caregivers with skills and knowledge to better manage their disease by offering education to community members, one to one support, and individualized health care plans, support network and community partnerships are maintained.
Provides telephone support, provided by trained volunteers in Cantonese and Mandarin, for persons in the Chinese-speaking community who require emotional support and help in accessing mental health resources.
Builds individual and community capacity, focusing on knowledge, skills and intersectoral partnerships that lead to: nutritious eating on a budget; socializing; and food preparation, through the operation of community kitchens.
Provides adults who are unable to seek regular employment because of physical disabilities or mental illness with a craft therapy/work program that is meaningful, productive and remunerated. Participants work at their own level towards creative expression, self-esteem, confidence and health.
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Provides emotional, psychological and practical support to people living with life-threatening illness and help for their families and caregivers. The philosophy of the program recognizes the connection between the mind and body with a view towards treating the whole person rather than treating the illness alone. Its programs and services focus on wellness, a holistic approach to healing, and are intended to complement primary medical care. Offered in a safe, confidential environment these programs are designed to help our members gain control over their health and to reduce the anxiety, stress and isolation of fighting their illness.
Provides music therapy to a population of Aboriginal children, youth, and families dealing with drug and alcohol issues and those affected by FASD. This program improves social functioning, self-esteem and confidence through participant directed sessions held at Sheway - a program for pregnant and parenting moms, and with Aboriginal students at West Coast Alternate School.
Supports volunteers who provide outreach, social support, and practical aid to isolated seniors in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and Downtown South neighbourhoods that allows them to age in their neighbourhood and be a part of their inner-city community.
Works to decrease family violence and to increase health and stability by providing culturally sensitive education and the support of positive Aboriginal role models. Provides traditional and contemporary strategies to decrease family violence.
Provides isolated, low-income seniors living with age-related disabilities in Vancouver’s West End with a variety of practical volunteer support services which help to maintain or improve clients’ mental and physical health, quality of life and their ability to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible.
Trains and lends peer counselling support to an increasing number of older adults by helping them strengthen their coping mechanisms, teaching them new skills to identify those at risk of falling, being financially, physically or emotionally abused, or misusing alcohol and/or medications, so that seniors have an increased ability to function better and live in their own homes longer
None listed. If you do not find what you are looking for, contact us and we will do our best to assist you.
None listed. If you do not find what you are looking for, contact us and we will do our best to assist you.
None listed. If you do not find what you are looking for, contact us and we will do our best to assist you.