At its regular meeting June 8, Peace River town council was informed of grants awarded through the Town of Peace River Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) Grants to Groups program.
“With the approach that council is recognized for its contribution to the community, this is a program that is funded through the Town’s budget through the FCSS program,” says director of community services Tanya Bell.
“We offer an FCSS Grants to Groups program that is targeted at helping organizations in the community,” she adds.
“They must be providing prevention services or programs or initiatives.”
FCSS is a provincially-funded program delivered in partnership with the Town of Peace River. The programs and services offered through FCSS must comply with, and operate within, the provincial FCSS Act and Regulation.
“The community services board has been delegated authority for that decision making within their community services board bylaw,” says Bell.
“We did receive five applications with one application not going forward to the community services board for review as it did not meet the prevention requirements.”
The four successful applicants included:
Peace Regional Outreach Campus was funded $12,000 for Youth Support Services.
Resource Centre for Suicide Prevention was awarded $7,500 for mental health literacy and suicide prevention programming.
Sagitawa Friendship Society applied for its Ground Level Youth Centre that provides programming, life skills, employment readiness, healthy relationships, cultural programming and support. They received $7,500.
North Peace Society for the Prevention of Domestic Violence received $13,000 to provide Pathway to Healthy Family Connections Program. This is a program that allows participants to build skills to identify unhealthy and abusive patterns, manage emotions, learn new ways to communicate, manage conflict, and repair harm that has occurred within a relationship.
“We have another robust evaluation process that each organization is required to complete following their grant year,” says Bell.
“They’re required to provide us with detailed financial information on how they’re expending the dollars, statistical number of individuals who participated, and required to do a formal survey with their participants provided by FCSS.”
The grant funding has been available for more than 30 years. Bell says it has provided funding to local not-for-profit agencies that deliver preventive services and programs in the community
Emily Plihal
Local Journalism
Initiative Reporter