Council turned down a request to provide funding for Big Brothers Big Sisters following a presentation by the organization's executive director.
Tim Howard attended the June 20 meeting to present officials with some background following the end of the group's first year in Sundre.
“Mentoring is about building relationships — that's what we do,” he said.
Children who have been mentored are found to have stronger social networks, make better life choices and are more confident as well as happy. Beyond that, mentoring also has a positive impact on how they do in school with improved attendance, social skills, and attitude as well as behaviour with friends and family. Additionally, there is a reduced likelihood of them getting involved with alcohol, street drugs and crime, he said.
“When they grow up, children who have been mentored are more likely to volunteer in the community, spend more time volunteering, give more to charity, as well as donate more. And in the workplace, they're more apt to be gainfully employed and earn more — in fact their average over their career will be about $315,000 more than their peers.”
That in turn means they'll contribute additional taxes and spend more as well, including giving to charity. The social return on investment is undeniable — for every $1 that goes into the program, there is a return to the community of $18. Aside from generating on average higher earnings, mentored youth are also less likely to seek out social services or end up in criminal rehabilitation or incarceration, which all comes at a significant cost. Children who are mentored over a longer period of time with the same mentor benefit the most, he said.
“For the most disadvantaged in society — usually single parent females — that social return on investment jumps to $23. So it's a good value for investment.”
Although Big Brother Big Sisters of Innisfail have been serving their community for about 30 years, the organization is new in Sundre and Olds, he said.
“We have experienced success in Sundre over the past year. We've now got 12 children already in the program here since January — it took a while to get our feet under us.”
In 2015, the organization spent on average about $1,800 for one-on-one mentoring. The national average is about $2,000, he said.
“So we're comfortably under the national average for one-on-one mentoring.”
The group's budget last year for 183 children was $226,000. For 270 children — the number of youth that ultimately the organization would like to have mentored in the Olds, Sundre, Mountain View County region — the budget would be $540,000, he said.
“Sundre has a high demand for our services. We're building our fundraising capacity, but we very much at this stage in the game depend on government to help us get started until we get a foothold in the communities that we're serving.”
The organization received funding for its 2016 budget from Olds Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) to the tune of $15,000, while Innisfail FCSS contributed $25,000, plus another $45,000 from the Red Deer and District FCSS, he said, adding Sundre FCSS had not contributed any funding.
“We will be expanding operations in Sundre as resources come in — that's always a caveat to everything that we do, it's always as resources permit.”
However, that was the good news, he said.
“The bad news is that we've been doing these presentations to all the FCSS and political jurisdictions that we operate in, and in fact the presentation that we made to Olds, they were quite forthright in telling us that we could expect our funding to be cut even more if we didn't start seeing support from this community.”
So aside from bringing council up to speed, part of the reason for the presentation was to request officials consider finding some funds that could be made available, he said.
“If we don't find a way through that, while we're getting our feet under us raising money in the community — and it's a slow process — we're going to see funding cut in other areas. And that has the potential to jeopardize our presence in this area. We don't want that to happen,” he told council.
“We're off to a very good start, this community has really stepped up in terms of the numbers of children and mentors that we are serving, and that number will only grow in the fall.”
Coun. Myron Thompson said during his days as a principal in the '80s, a Big Brothers Big Sisters program was successfully run by volunteers at no cost.
“Now we're talking about having no funding for a program I found effective back in those days. Suddenly we need government support to make it work —where did we lose our way?” he asked.
While Sundre very likely had a mentoring program back then, it probably was not an official Big Brothers Big Sisters organization because it runs under the national standards of the group's national body. Also, the organization got started in Innisfail in 1987 and was the first one in the area up to that point, replied Howard.
“All of our mentors our volunteers. However, we have a very rigorous screening process for those volunteers for one purpose and one purpose only — and that's the safety of children,” he said.
“The lion's share of our costs are staffing costs that are engaged in the process of screening the children, and more importantly, screening the volunteers,” he said, adding, “Without that, we don't have accreditation.”
Thompson expressed the opinion that Alberta Education should be involved.
“I'm sorry if this causes controversy, but when I hear the amount of money being spent to make sure our students understand climate change and sexual orientation when they need some personal help, I get a little disturbed,” he said.
“I would love to see the money going to Big Brothers Big Sisters, but it should be done through the department who has the money to spend. If they've got millions floating around for climate change and sexual orientation, how about spending some of that on those who need the help.”
In response, Howard said, “We would love nothing better than to get even the tiniest slice of the education budget, however, that isn't going to happen. To a certain extent, that's a good thing because we are never in a conflict of interest with education because our program is run outside of it. So we are not beholden to any curriculum being delivered. We run parallel to it, but we are not part of the Alberta Education curriculum.”
Coun. Paul Isaac was not particularly impressed by “other municipalities challenging other municipalities and threatening an organization like Big Brothers Big Sisters and say they'll have funding cut if they don't get more funding elsewhere.”
Mayor Terry Leslie inquired what kind of contribution the organization is hoping for, and Howard answered $10,000.
Council accepted the presentation for information and directed administration to look into the request for funding, which was brought back during the June 27 meeting.
In Sundre, FCSS is administered by the Greenwood Neighbourhood Place Society, which is a different approach than other communities, said Vic Pirie, director of finance and administration.
Aside from the fact the society has already allocated all of its FCSS funding for the year, approving the funding request could also open the door for other agencies or organizations that have not received GNP or FCSS funding before to approach council with similar requests, he said, adding Big Brothers Big Sisters is receiving in-kind support to the amount of about $1,200 a year.
The mayor said he wanted to support the mentorship organization but at the same time did not desire to undermine the work GNP does. The situation does raise the question as to whether the society receives enough funding, he said.
Council carried a motion to support Big Brothers Big Sisters activities — Coun. Cheri Funke is among the volunteer mentors — but cannot financially support the organization as current FCSS funding and programming is administered by GNP.
