Last chance to register for the June Conference in Penticton

When you renewed your membership in March, we asked you to share information about the kinds of services you deliver. This information helps us coordinate our advocacy efforts, helps us target communications and requests for information, and it also helps us plan our three annual conferences. ...Read More

May Projects & Issues Update

Over the past few months, The Federation board members, staff team, and I have been focused on a number of ongoing projects and initiatives. We have been meeting with government colleagues and funders, bringing forward concerns, collaborating with sector colleagues, and tracking issues that affect our members and our sector. ...Read More

Celebrate BC Child and Youth in Care Week

The Federation is a proud member of the BC Youth in Care Advisory Committee and we are excited to help raise awareness about BC Child and Youth in Care Week taking place June 4–10, 2018. Proclaimed by the province of British Columbia in 2011, BC Child and Youth in Care Week is a time for people in communities a ...Read More

Updated MCFD Caregiver Screening Policy

In December 2014, MCFD implemented a new caregiver screening policy. Since then, a number of Federation members faced challenges implementing the new requirements and, over the past three years, we have been working closely with MCFD to provide feedback from community organizations and to help the ministry identi ...Read More

The benefits of partnerships: Federation Insurance Products

The Federation believes that in order to be strong and sustainable, BC’s community social services sector must have access to high quality and affordable insurance products. That’s one big reason why our member agencies have access to a suite of comprehensive and reliable insurance programs and ...Read More

Award for Excellence Nominations 

Last week, I spoke about the Federation’s Youth Education Bursary and the way that it serves to welcome young people into our sector and our work. Today, I want to talk about our Award for Excellence and the related purpose it serves—recognizing and thanking the people who have stayed in the sector and committed their c ...Read More

BC’s new Employer Health Tax

One of the big changes revealed in the BC budget speech a few weeks ago was the announcement of a new progressive tax that will replace MSP premiums in our province. The BC Employers Health Tax, as it will be called, is slated to come into effect in January 2019. We know there are already many questions about how this tax wi ...Read More

Federation Champions: Supporting each other

As we were getting ready for February’s Social Policy Forum in Victoria, we came up with a simple new idea that we thought might help keep our provincial events affordable and accessible for our small- and medium-sized members. The Federation is constantly striving to support our members, but we wanted to test ...Read More

Youth Education Bursary: Supporting youth in care

As many of you know, The Federation’s Youth Education Bursary was an initiative that was actually established by Federation members. But you may not know that its creation was inspired by two different, but related intentions. The first (rather obvious) goal was to support young people in care—in particu ...Read More

Budgets, Issues, and Action Plans

There’s a lot going on in BC and at The Federation this week so my weekly update will cover a few different topics: this week’s provincial budget, the next steps after our 2018 Social Policy Forum, and ongoing peer support and learning opportunities for Federation members and their staff. 1. Social Policy Forum R ...Read More