By: Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Essex Free Press
Representatives of the Community Support Centre of Essex County (CSC) – and agency partners – celebrated receiving a $600,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) Grow Grant that will support the expansion of its Windsor Essex Compassion Care Community (WECCC) program.
CSC CAO Tracey Bailey – who is also Mayor of Lakeshore – said this is the beginning of work that will build stronger connections, reduce isolation, and support informal care within public housing communities.
The grant supported the expansion of the WECCC program across the region. In partnership with the Windsor Essex Community Housing Corporation (WECHC) and the University of Windsor, trained volunteers are working alongside seniors to self-assess their social, mental, and physical well-being, set personal goals, map informal care networks, and identify gaps in supports.
Bailey said the collaboration is focusing on community development, housing leadership, and research insight to strengthen outcomes for residents.
CSC is grateful to work with community leaders, service partners, housing providers, and residents to strengthen connections, well-being, and resilience.
“People need more than services,” Bailey said. “We need networks of kin, neighbourhoods, community relations, relationships for help and for support.
Individuals may not always be comfortable asking for help when needed.
“When we use the skills and talents of neighbours to break down isolation, we build the connections people need to live well.”
Essex MPP Anthony Leardi and Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie attended the announcement on Thursday, February 19. “So many people are going to benefit” from the expansion, Leardi said. He was happy to attend the event to celebrate the grant.
Anna Dobrovolskis, WECCC Coordinator for Drop-In Programming, said they were going into their sixth week of the drop-in activity programs. A schedule of drop-in recreation, fitness, wellness, and education opportunities has been established for residents at seven community housing locations. Recreational activities were also offered, such as Bingo, chair exercises, painting, memory games, and weekly dialogue sessions focused on health promotion.
“We continue to build a positive rapport with residents, while understanding the unique challenges they are facing,” Dobrovolskis explained, adding the drop-in sessions offer a unique and inclusive space for socialization, building connections and belonging between residents.
Over the next three-years, WECCC will also focus on community development, increasing capacity within the community for resident-led activities, and enhancing naturally occurring networks of support.
Deborah Sattler, WECCC Project Manager, spoke of the Friendly Support Program, which allows the organization to work with individuals one-on-one. It allows them to describe what is most important to them and what they believe they want and need to live with dignity and a good quality of life.
Through efforts of mobilizing volunteers, and providing the kind of support needed, WECCC has had “the opportunity to mobilize that network of care around the inherent dignity of people in their homes in their communities. And, build those lasting community relationships with their neighbours and neighbourhood, which help them achieve the best health and happiness possible.”
When it comes to the network of care, Sattler said it is believed to be a concept that is personal to each individual.
“Our model is not just on training volunteers and providing support around unmet needs, it is around turning all of that conversation into real outcome measures that help us measure the impact of our support in terms of those quality-of-life outcomes and social health outcomes,” Settler explained. That puts a real value on wellness, care, community-base support, preventative care, and self-care in the communities.”
The program is also building a resource hub with different activities that can be done with individuals to help bring insight into what opportunities, mindset shifts, and behaviours in which they can engage in their own living circumstances to be as healthy and happy as possible. That is in ways that are authentic and meaningful to them.
Fabio Costante, CEO of WECHC, said the programming is “really meeting people where they are at.”
He noted many of the WECHC clients are seniors. Social isolation is a real challenge. Already, data is showing more than 85 residents have been helped through the drop-in programming and 20 individuals have joined the one-on-one sessions.
“I can only imagine how the numbers will increase over the coming years, as we build more trust in our programming,” Costante said. It is a great start and he is looking forward to that continuing.
Kathy Pfaff, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Windsor, has been involved with WECCC since 2016, when it was launched at Hospice.
“We have learned a lot over the last 10-years,” she said. “But at the heart of things, we know that what we are doing is rooted in something very simple, but powerful.”
Health is not created in hospitals alone, Pfaff said. It is also created in communities.
“Research from around the world is telling us that social isolation is a huge problem. Here in Canada, one in three Canadians experiences loneliness or social isolation. We now know through rigorous research, loneliness is not just a feeling people have, it is also a health risk,” Pfaff added. ‘
“People who are socially isolated are more likely to develop chronic disease, they rely heavily on healthcare, they experience…events such as falls in their homes, they access our hospitals more frequently than others, and they are more likely to enter long-term care earlier than others.”
The costs of all of that are enormous, she said.
The healthcare system was not designed to meet the practical needs of people, or their emotional and social needs that shape how people experience health, Pfaff said. Care, she added, begins in relationships.
“That is what WECCC is about.”
She said it was found this model acts as a safety net for people, “It is keeping people from falling through the cracks in the formal care system, because it surfaces unmet needs the system doesn’t pick-up. It empowers people and it strengthens the community around them.”
Pfaff added the future of sustainable healthcare is not in hospitals and clinics. “It lies in expanding relationships – and compassion within relationships – within the informal care system.”
