OMSSA is featuring several 2024 Local Municipal Champion award recipients and their work in the Knowledge Exchange Blog. Please read this entry from the City of Brantford.
Brantford’s Community Resource Navigation (CRN) pilot is a service delivery approach focused on improving OW recipients’ overall well-being, decreasing time on assistance and/or avoiding the need to enter the social assistance system altogether through an integrated and person centered service delivery model.
Be Part of the Solution stemmed from priorities identified at Lambton County’s 2023 Stronger Together Summit. This event brought together stakeholders from local non-profits, government, the healthcare sector, and individuals with lived experience to discuss issues of housing, homelessness, and addiction. The top priority emerging from this summit was a public education campaign around homelessness, particularly with a focus on long-term supportive and affordable housing, and community will to say “yes, in my backyard” to these proven interventions. Learn more about Lambton County’s public education campaign.
In August 2022, the Catherine Street Community Service Hub (CSCS Hub) was created. The CSCS Hub is an innovative way of providing integrated person-centred services through collocation. Caring and knowledgeable staff and partners work together to create a safe resting space where everyone is welcome to drop in and access coordinated wrap around municipal and community services and supports in one location.
This service delivery approach aims to streamline the client experience, increase the capacity to deliver responsive services and support, and reinforce accountability to clients, staff, and community.
OMSSA is featuring several 2023 Local Municipal Champion award recipients and their work in the Knowledge Exchange Blog. Please read this entry from the City of Windsor.
Roxham Road is bisected by the Canada-U.S. Border between Quebec and New York. It sits about 50 km south of Montreal. The road is a well-travelled unofficial border crossing for asylum seekers hoping to enter Canada. Due to the volume of claimants arriving in Quebec, It was not long until Quebec shelters were full. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) stepped in and rented hotels in Quebec to accommodate the asylum seekers. The hotels rented in Quebec by IRCC quickly filled. They had to expand their hotel operations outside of Quebec. IRCC transferred asylum claimants via charter bus to multiple municipalities across Ontario for temporary hotel accommodations. Windsor first welcomed the asylum seekers crossing at Roxham Road in January 2023. Learn more about the team that helped asylum seekers as they arrived in Windsor.
OMSSA is featuring several of our 2022 Local Municipal Champion award recipients and their work in the Knowledge Exchange Blog. Please read the entry from the District of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board. Over the past five years TBDSSAB has worked to create community resource centres for tenants and clients, creating centralized access for neighbourhood engagement and service enhancement.
The Region of Peel is dedicated in creating a community where every person experiences a sense of belonging while having access to all services that may be required through each stage of life. As a result, the Peel Youth Caseworker team was founded, to provide integrated services to youth while being devoted to assisting residents out of poverty.
OMSSA is featuring several of our 2022 Local Municipal Champion award recipients and their work in the Knowledge Exchange Blog. Please read the entry from the County of Lambton. With early uncertainty regarding COVID-19 and strong awareness of the heightened vulnerabilities for those experiencing homelessness, the County of Lambton was tasked with ensuring the shelter and safety of households experiencing homelessness. They had varying needs, levels of support, and sources of income. It was understood within the Social Services Division that a unique approach to helping these households begin their journey to a new home would be required. This is where the concept of the Integrated Team originated.
The 2022 Policy Conference was the first in-person event for OMSSA in the last three years. OMSSA members and staff were eager to meet with their colleagues resulting in a great turnout at the event with members joining from all around the province. The Conference consisted of several plenary and concurrent sessions focusing on relevant human services policy topics.
Within the next 25 years, Canada’s elderly population is expected to grow three times larger compared to today, necessitating the need for senior services. The needs of seniors in the 2SLGBTQI+ community who identify as Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Intersex—must be considered as the country’s demographics change.
Homelessness can be a result of a complex mix of social services, health, and economic difficulties. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic changed how we work, our way of education and how we interact with others. Due to reduced in-person social services, widespread isolation, and inflationary housing and food costs, homelessness is gaining recognition as a serious problem. With agencies and drop-in centres now open people can have access to in-person support yet the number of people wandering our streets continues to shock and disappoint the public.