The future of the Wheatland Family and Community Support Services (WFCSS) has been a mystery since the Town of Strathmore announced they were pulling out of the organization earlier this summer.
At the August 22 board meeting of the WFCSS, the future which had remained enigmatic for nearly a month was settled.
“It was the first time we had a chance to meet since we got the news the Town of Strathmore wanted to separate and form their own FCSS,” said Darcy Burke, chair of the WFCSS board and Mayor of Rockyford. “We did some strategic planning and made some decisions on how we’ll be moving forward.”
For residents of Wheatland County, there is good news. The WFCSS will continue to function and perhaps become stronger than ever.
“The first priority will be the rural people, because we will now be a rural FCSS. It could really augment the rural programs, because there will be a lot more funding available,” said Burke.
Because of the split, the funding WFCSS receives will essentially be split in half between the new Strathmore FCSS and the remnants of the WFCSS.
Currently, Strathmore receives roughly 90 percent of the WFCSS funding.
“We had a discussion as to what would happen to some of our programs that we offer inside Strathmore. There was some discussion and concern about whether these organizations would be able to exist with less funding than what they have received over the past few years,” said Burke.
“The funds coming to the Town of Strathmore will be significantly less.”
There is concern among the WFCSS board about how effectively the Town of Strathmore can deliver services with less funding. In particular, Burke highlighted the home support services.
“We have seniors as clients in Strathmore who are significantly worried about the transition. They like consistency and continuity, which might not be there. We see this is having a negative impact on those people and our board is trying to set up a meeting with the Town of Strathmore, because we would like to contract our home support services to the Town of Strathmore. That way our home support clients would not see a change in their day to day routine,” said Burke.
“Both parties involved in this transition have to be sympathetic to the needs of our clients.”
Other business of the meeting was to find a municipality that would act as signing authority for the funding received from the provincial government. The Village of Standard stepped forward in that capacity and will henceforth receive the government funding intended for the WFCSS.
The previous signing authority had been the Town of Strathmore.
The WFCSS is also in the process of finding a new building. As of January 1, they will be evicted from their current space in Strathmore. Burke indicated they hope the office will continue to reside in Strathmore.
For the time being, the WFCSS program co-ordinator will research other rural FCSS programs to learn how programs are delivered elsewhere in the province in an effort to continue and improve programs in Wheatland County.
“We want to make sure we meet the needs of our people and improve the services we’ve had for the past 35 years,” said Burke.