What does the provincial office of BCSS do? How is BCSS structured?
The BC Schizophrenia Society is based in Richmond, BC (near Vancouver). In addition to the provincial office in Richmond, the provincial head office maintains presences and staff in Fort St. John, Kamloops, New Westminster, Powell River & area, Prince George area, Haida Gwaii, Smithers, Surrey, Tri-Cities/Ridge Meadows, Terrace, Vancouver/Richmond and Williams Lake. In these regional offices, coordinators supervised by the head office in Richmond BC provide information, support and services for families in their areas.
In 2008 alone, these hard-working coordinators provided: 231 support group sessions, 68 support groups for persons with a mental illness, 71 Strengthening Families Together sessions, 27 BRIDGES sessions, 177 public presentations, 155 Partnership Presentations and 13 Kids in Control sessions.
The provincial society provides media relations, administers the society’s charitable status including issuing tax receipts, advocates with the provincial government and is offers and manages the following programs:
- Online Family Support Groups 24/7 (BC-wide)
- Family Respite Program (funded in lower mainland)
- Provincial Calendar of Family Support Events (BC-wide)
- Website that includes hundreds of pages of resource information
- Web pages for branches and regional service areas.
- ReachOut Psychosis Concert & Education Program (which educates youth about psychosis BC-wide)
- Kids in Control Support Group Program (in Surrey, New Westminster & Chilliwack to Hope areas)
- BRIDGES Education Program (specific regions where funding is available)
- Outreach elists to family members, professionals and educators
- A provincial newsletter
The structure of the organization has changed over the past several years, in response to changes in how people volunteer their time. In the beginning of BCSS’s history, women who worked raising their children from home generously donated large amounts of time and effort to the society and provided the bulk of our volunteer work force. Because of how people’s lives have shifted, in recent years, many of those volunteers have retired, and there are fewer and fewer volunteers available to take their place.
Because of all this, in recent years, support programs for families, with some wonderful exceptions, have generally only been possible in regions where funding and paid staff are available to do the work. This has led to more and more complex administration at head office, as numerous staff and small contracts from a variety of funders now keep these services afloat and these contracts generally have their own reporting requirements. The accounting and reporting work for these contracts and providing paperwork and charitable receipts for unincorporated branches keep a full time financial administrator very busy. Hiring, managing and maintaining these contracts take up a large portion of the full time executive directors’ time.
In addition, a few years ago the province stopped providing operational funding (staff, office rent, phone, office supplies) to BCSS and several other mental health related provincial societies, replacing that funding with year to year project-only funding. These two factors have made it a lot harder to provide services, and the BC Schizophrenia Society has had to lay off several staff in the past two years because there wasn’t enough money to pay them.
In addition to the provincial society run offices, there are several branches throughout BC. Some branches have incorporated themselves as separate societies (incorporated branches), with their charitable status dependent on the provincial society, but separate from it. The incorporated branches, such as BCSS Victoria, generally maintain separately funded offices and staff, who provide services similar to the provincial regional coordinators. The remaining branches are run by dedicated volunteers, and services offered to the public depend on what the local volunteers are interested in and available to offer.
Donations to the provincial society are always welcome and may be made by clicking here or by sending a cheque to the BC Schizophrenia Society #201 – 6011 Westminster Hwy., Richmond, B.C. V7C 4V4.
