City Council seeks to bring Social Services users and providers together

The issue of the delivery of social services in Prince Rupert accounted for a fair amount of the discussion at Prince Rupert City Council on Tuesday evening.

With Council members reviewing the recent Social Services Open House at the Civic Centre. Seeking to find ways to improve the delivery of those services and the communication between those that rely on the services and those that provide them.

The overview of the current situation began with the Mayor outlining the nature of the Open House (which we previewed on the blog in January) which provided information on Social Services available in the community, but didn't provide an opportunity for social service users to discuss concerns.

That theme was picked up by other members of Council, with Councillor Garon expressing her disappointment in the turn out for the session and suggesting that Council should become more involved in addressing issues of Service Delivery in the community.

"The system is broken and it needs to be fixed"-- Councillor Gina Garon on the topic of Social Services in the community.

Councillors Garon and Cunningham also provided their thoughts on how some of the social service issues could be exacerbated, should the proposed economic development plans come to pass at an advanced rate.

Councillor Thorkelson also had concerns over the Social Services situation in the city looking to find a way to bring providers and those using the services together, in order to gain a better understanding of what those that use the services require from the providers of the services.

The prospect of involving North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice in the process was discussed, though Council members agreed that they need to have a better handle on what is required before they take their issues to the MLA.

Towards that goal, Councillor Ashley introduced a motion that would ask staff to direct a request to the Social Service Agencies in the city to help Council to facilitate a meeting with people in the community to identify concerns that they have on the topic.

Council will revisit the motion, once staff has provided for the proper approach to bring their request into action.

You can review the discussion on the topic from the City Council Video Archives, the Social Services discussion starts at the 1 hour sixteen minute mark.

We have more on Council Developments on our City Council Archive page and with our Discussion points from Council page.