Taking Stock

 

Taking Stock: Supporting Canadian Child and Youth Agencies in Economic Crisis

 

Background

Canada is the last country to be impacted by the world economic crisis and the first and most stable economy emerging from it. However, the nonprofit sector is not immune from the economic crisis’ rapid impact. Traditional sources of stable funding for the sector are in crisis themselves, putting the nonprofit sector at risk at a time when the need for services are greater than ever. The National Alliance for Children and Youth (NACY) aims to provide the knowledge and leadership required to mobilize our members and partners in communities across Canada to ″take stock″ and identify how this economic crisis impacts our sector, devise ways and means to ensure that Canadian families continue to have access to the supports and services that they need, and to emerge from this crisis with strengthened agencies within a stronger sector.

Challenge

Member agencies in the sector across Canada are experiencing:

  • A front line sector with families on their doorsteps struggling with capacity, delivery and sustainability challenges;
  • Community agencies reliant on volunteers, community donations and goodwill, trying to survive on inconsistent and patchwork funding;
  • Documented evidence that increased numbers of Canadian families are at risk, as evidenced by increased child and family poverty statistics, educational and health thresholds not being met, and increased homelessness.

These service delivery factors have contributed to increasingly isolated or clusters of homegrown services working in silos without networking support, learning capacity, or economies of scale within many communities. Experience, learning, efficiency models, mentorships, and new approaches have not been captured or shared to improve services, increase capacity, or to help a struggling agency survive.

The Taking Stock Project

The Project, generously funded by the Government of Canada’s Social Development Partnership Program, will:

  1. Take stock of current economic realities impacting our member agencies in the child & youth sector in the areas of: capacity building, knowledge acquisition/mentorship and sustainability,
  2. Identify the best crisis management, models and/or approaches available or being practiced by agencies in these areas, and
  3. Share, germinate ideas, solutions and approaches in the child & youth sector to:
  • build increased capacity and/or more efficiencies;
  • gain more knowledge/mentorship abilities to support agencies facing crisis;
  • support and strengthen agencies to achieve greater sustainability.

Project activities will include:

  • 15 evidence-based case studies to capture transformational change ideas + solutions in Atlantic, Western and Central regions across Canada.
  • Regional Child and Youth Think Tank Sessions and Focus Groups to share sector challenges, solutions and information.
  • 2 National Surveys to “Take Stock” of the child & youth sector to capture the issues being faced.
  • A Literature Review to capture and provide information on capacity building, service delivery efficiencies and sustainability for knowledge transfer to the sector.
  • An enhance NACY website to enable knowledge transfer and sector support.

NACY will use the existing wealth of knowledge and experience within our membership to direct and implement this project. Together, we will face this economic downturn and use this project to ensure that our members emerge stronger. PDF Version of the Taking Stock Project Overview. Version PDF : Vue d’ensemble – Faire le bilan For more information: Taking Stock Project, info@nacy.ca