AAP results approves new health and wellness service for Gabriola Island

After the AAP, only 101 or 2.57 per cent of valid forms were received, passing the bylaw. Photo: Katy Sandvoss / Flickr.com

The Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) has approved a new health and wellness service for Gabriola Island.

This comes after an Alternative Approval Process (AAP), for the new service only received 101 forms in opposition to it. 

The AAP gave residents on Gabriola Island the opportunity to submit a form opposing the RDN raising funds through property tax to fund the new service. The new service will see the hiring of a community health and wellbeing service coordinator for the island.

The first year of service will be a pilot for a part-time position totalling $50,592 including a two per cent RDN administrative fee. The cost for a full-time position is estimated to be $100,600 annually with a two per cent RDN administration fee funded by the service.

This AAP applied to Gabriola Island in Electoral Area B, with 3,928 eligible electors. For the bylaw to fail, greater than 10 per cent or 392 forms had to be received before the closing date.

Only 101 or 2.57 per cent of valid forms were received, passing the bylaw.

Dyan Dunsmoor-Farley is a member of the coordinating group for the Gabriola Health and Wellness Collaborative.

She explained that the group started seven years ago when people in the community realized that residents on Gabriola Island had more complex problems and needs. 

“We came together as a group of volunteers and started to look at what the priorities were and find ways to work together to address these complex issues that couldn't be addressed by one organization alone,”  Dunsmoor-Farley said.

Dunsmoor-Farley said although 101 people submitted forms opposed to the service, she still considers their opinions when thinking about what the community wants for health and wellbeing services.

“I think it's really important to note here, that those folks, their votes really mean something important to us, we want to make sure that this position serves everybody in this community and brings a benefit to everybody in this community,”  Dunsmoor-Farley said.

The Gabriola Health and Wellness Collaborative has over 50 groups or individuals who work to enhance the health and well-being of Gabriola residents, many of whom volunteer their time.

“We have families struggling to support family members living with addiction, we have child and youth mental-health needs, we need to be taking action on extreme weather planning and response, homelessness, etc,”  Dunsmoor-Farley said. “So we come together to work across multiple organizations to address these complex problems.”

Dunsmoor-Farley explained that the funding would go towards a coordinator who would be responsible for creating action tables addressing identified priorities, seeking grant money and taking some workload off volunteers.

She said she sees volunteers at the collaborative work many hours each month working together to address the complex problems in the community. She added that it is not sustainable over the long term.

“In a small community, we depend on volunteers. We have to help volunteers see some results from their hard work,”  Dunsmoor-Farley said. “So if we can supplement the work they're doing rather than relying on volunteers, we can keep our core of volunteers.”

She said the new service will allow a coordinator to support volunteers by making sure they are placed in situations that best fit their skill sets as right now it is not a guarantee what area volunteers will be able to focus on.

Dunsmoor-Farley has seen how added support to the island has done amazing work in the community including when the island got a part-time social worker and mental-health nurse after a spike in suicides. She said this new position will be able to support other mental-health services to get ahead of more complex and unpredictable situations that could occur.

“I want to really emphasize [Gabriola] is like every other community, we are facing the crisis of climate change, and extreme weather events are going to have a serious impact on this community,” Dunsmoor-Farley said. “Having this position will help us get ahead of those kinds of issues so that we do the planning necessary so that we don't find that our community members are in peril because we weren't able to do the planning that was necessary to respond to those needs.”

Dunsmoor-Farleys said the next step will be identifying an organization that can hold the contract for the new position and starting the hiring process. 

“Because the collaborative has an amazing amount of knowledge about what needs to be done in what's going on in this community,”  Dunsmoor-Farley said. “And we want to make sure that the individual is supported to be very successful in this job.”

The maximum increase to property tax for those in the service area would equal under four cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.  

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.