Stop Abuse in Families (SAIF) will be able to keep its elder abuse program running for another year and dedicate more hours for counselling, thanks to additional funding from the City of St. Albert.
On Nov. 16, Coun. Sheena Hughes presented a motion to give SAIF up to $75,000 from the stabilization reserve to provide elder abuse and additional counselling services for 2020-21 as a result of the increased demand due to COVID-19. It passed in a 4-3 vote (with Mayor Cathy Heron and councillors Natalie Joly and Jacquie Hansen against).
The motion arose from discussions with SAIF about their needs when the city met with all outside agencies earlier this year, Hughes said. Considering the city's expected $2.6-million surplus is anticipated to go into the stabilization reserve, Hughes said the motion would help SAIF bridge gaps in service without impacting other organizations or taxpayers.
"If this isn't approved, ultimately the people who suffer are the families that need help," Hughes said.
Without additional support, SAIF's elder abuse program would have ended in March, said Areni Kelleppan, SAIF executive director. However, the need is still very much there. The not-for-profit has seen caseloads for their elder abuse program increase from 88 seniors last year to about 120 seniors this year, she said.
"I cried a little bit, because elder abuse has been sitting on my shoulders for quite some time," she said with emotion in her voice.
"We've exhausted all the pots of money we could go after, so we were looking at winding down for March, and we would have to close intakes for January. And that's a difficult decision to make when you know that you will no longer be able to offer that service for so many people who call you ... so it was a relief, really, to have another year."
Kelleppan said $25,000 will be used to continue their elder abuse program for another year, she said. Then if the not-for-profit cannot raise $50,000 on their own, the remaining funding will be used to extend SAIF's counselling hours.
Calls for counselling to SAIF have quadrupled while case counts have doubled and tripled in the last few months, she said, with each part-time counsellor taking on between 40 to 60 cases each.
"It allows us to keep our staff going. We won't hire new staff, we would just increase hours of our existing staff, because they're already trained and we can mobilize them really quickly," she said. "It's just adding hours to what we need to ensure that there's no long waitlist or people who are calling us."
