64th Annual General Meeting 2013-2014 ANNUAL REPORT

THE JOHN HOWARD SOCIETY

OF NOVA SCOTIA

64th

Annual General Meeting

2013-2014 ANNUAL REPORT

Wednesday, June 18th

, 2014

“Improving through Collaboration”

Find us on the web: www.ns.johnhoward.ca

http://www.ns.johnhoward.ca/

The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia

http://www.ns.johnhoward.ca Since 1950 1- 541Sackville Dr., Lr Sackville, NS B4C 2S1 Certified

E-mail [email protected] Phone (902) 429-6429 Fax (902) 406-7619

*Member Society of

The John Howard Society of Canada

Board of Directors:

President

Flora MacLeod

Past President

Janis Aitken

Vice President

Dana Bowden

Secretary/Treasurer

Bob MacDonald

Board Members:

Terry Hatcher

Oscar Miller

Angela Power

Don Clairmont

Ivan Wyse

Cheryl Fraser

Executive Director:

John Peach

Programs & Services:

- Restorative Justice

- Educational Workshops

- Community Assessments

- Community Maintenance Program

- Community Workplace Program

- Aftercare

- Crime Prevention

- Employment Readiness Program

- Anger Management & Emotional

Intelligence

- Healthy Lifestyles

- Creative Writing Workshop

(CNSCF)

AGENDA 64

TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

“Improving through Collaboration”

Wednesday June 18th

, 2014

Immanuel Baptist Church Hall, 295 Young St, Truro, NS B2N 3Y4

6:00PM Meet and Greet with refreshments

6:30PM Business Meeting

Call to Order

o Welcome and Introductions

Approval of Agenda

Confirmation of 2013 Annual General Meeting Minutes

Review of 2013 Annual Report

o President

o Executive Director

– North Eastern Region

– Central Region

– Halifax Region

o Motion to receive reports

2014 Financial Statement

o Appointment of FY2014/2015 External Auditor

Nomination Report

o Election of Directors to the Board Ratification of the Acts of Directors

Presentations and Recognition

Staff feedback for Board’s Strategic Plan

Adjournment

Central

184 Arthur St., Suite 220

Truro, NS B2N 1Y4

(902) 843-4969

[email protected]

Halifax

1-541 Sackville Dr.,

Lr Sackville, NS B4C 2S1

(902) 429-6429

[email protected]

North East

2042 Queen St. Suite 211

Westville, NS B0K 2A0

(902) 396-1999

[email protected]

Provincial Society

c/o 1-541 Sackville Dr.,

Lr Sackville, NS B4C 2S1

(902) 429-6429

[email protected]

http://www.ns.johnhoward.ca/

mailto:[email protected]

2013-2014 Annual Report – “Celebrating 64 Years of Service”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CORE STATEMENTS:

Description….............................................................................................................i

Mission …………………….…………….……………………….…………….. i

Methods ……………………………………….…………………….…………... i

Core Value Statements..………………………….………………….………….. ii

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

List of Directors....……………………………………..…………….…………. iii

List of Board of Directors Meetings..………………………………….….…..… iii

MINUTES OF 63RD

ANNUAL MEETING…………………………………….….…. 1

REPORTS:

President’s Report..…….………………………………………………….….…. 6

Executive Director’s Report…………………………………………………..….. 7

North Eastern Regional Report.………………………………………………….. 9

Central Regional Report……………………………………………………….....10

Halifax Regional Report……………………………………………………….…13


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Core Value Statements

Description: The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia is a provincial organization comprising and governed by people whose goal is to understand and respond to problems of crime and the criminal justice system. Mission: Effective, just and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime. Methods: In furtherance of its Mission, the Society:

- works with people who have come into conflict with the law, - reviews, evaluates and advocates for changes in the criminal justice process,

- engages in public education on matters relating to criminal law and its application, and promotes

crime prevention through community activities. Values: More specifically, the Society engages in the following:

- Advocacy, which includes active, planned and frequent contact with the media, key government policy analysis, advisors and politicians and committees with respect to the promotion of the objectives of The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia

- Research related to the development and dissemination of briefs and positions on matters of

national and provincial importance which incorporates positions in the furtherance of objectives of The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia;

- Communication with other John Howard Societies to promote a coordinated consultative

process which allows the Society to respond to the needs of members and facilitate joint projects.

- Community Education which focuses on the sharing of information among members and the promotion of the objectives of The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia to the members through board development activities and broad based community education initiatives to enhance its role.

- Coalition Building through a coordinated process of information sharing and the dissemination

of materials with other like minded organizations;

- Resource development initiatives to strengthen the ability of the provincial office to further the objectives of The John Howard Society of Nova Scotia

- Direct service provision by supervising those ho have come in conflict with the law, by assisting

with community reintegration and by working with the families of offenders.


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2013-2014 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Name Office Notes

Flora MacLeod

President

Joined Board November 2009

Janis Aitken

Past President

Joined Board September 2001

Dana Bowden

Vice President

Joined Board June 2009

Bob MacDonald

Secretary/Treasurer


Terry Hatcher

Director

Joined Board June 2009

Oscar Miller

Director


Angela Power

Director

Joined Board February 2010

Don Clairmont

Director


Ivan Wyse

Director


Cheryl Fraser

Director


2013-2014 BOARD OF DIRECTOR MEETINGS

Date Location No. of Directors Present

April 27th, 2013

Note: Included Part 1 of

Strategic Planning Session Halifax 8 of 9

June 28th, 2013 (Re-org) Halifax 7 of 9

August 24th

, 2013 Halifax 6 of 9

November 16th

, 2013 Note: Included Part 2 of

Strategic Planning Session Halifax 8 of 10

February 15th

, 2014 Halifax 6 of 10

Please Note: Previous year’s AGM Minutes and Annual Reports may be found at

http://www.ns.johnhoward.ca/about/annual_meeting/

http://www.ns.johnhoward.ca/about/annual_meeting/

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63rd Annual General Meeting

June 25th

, 2013

Present: Janis Aitken Susan Hughes

Dana Bowden Kate Bray

Flora MacLeod Diana Wallis

Adrienne MacDonald Kathy Peach

Bob MacDonald Christine King

Cindy Reid Rob MacDonald

Angela Power Wanda Dickie

Oscar Miller Natalie Cox

John Peach Ivan Wyse (Joined the meeting at 7:00pm)

Regrets: Terry Hatcher, Don Clairmont

Annual General Meeting

1. Janis Aitken called the meeting to Order at 6:30 p.m. and a quorum was declared.

2. Approval of Agenda:

Moved by Rob MacDonald and seconded by Wanda Dickie that the Agenda for the

AGM be approved.

Carried

3. Confirmation of AGM Minutes - AGM June 21st, 2012

Moved by Kathy Peach and seconded by Bob MacDonald that the minutes from the

Annual General Meeting held June 21st, 2012 be confirmed.

Carried

4. Reports

The full reports are contained within the annual report.

The highlights from the reports are as follows.

President of the Board:

Janis Aitken thanked both the staff and the Board for their commitment and hard work.

It has been another successful, but challenging year, and her remarks are contained within

the Annual Report.

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Executive Director:

John Peach thanked staff, the Board and in addition to his comments in the Annual

Report expressed a special thank you to everyone for the positive manner in which they

have faced and dealt with the challenges that we faced during 2012.

Central Region: Christina King just highlighted some of the events over the past year and thanked the

Board, staff and John Peach for their support for her in her new role.

Halifax Region:

John Peach again thanked staff for their support during the challenges faced this past

year, but once again they have demonstrated their resilience.

North Eastern Region:

Susan Hughes thanked her team, the Board and John Peach for their support and

assistance to her as the Director. She spoke about the challenges they face in promoting

restorative justice in the community, but following the strategic direction they set last

year the number of referrals have increased.

Moved by Rob MacDonald and seconded by Dana Bowden that the reports be received.

Carried

5. Financial Statement:

The audited financial statement for fiscal year 2012-13 was tabled by John Peach. John

reported that the Society finished in s strong financial position with retained earnings of

$16,981, primarily from the conscious decision not to fill the full time equivalents (FTE)

positions at the Halifax Region.

Moved by Flora MacLeod and seconded by Angela Power that the Auditor’s Report be

accepted.

Carried

6. Appointment of Auditors:

Moved by Bob MacDonald and seconded by Cindy Reid that Miles T. Sweeney Ltd. be

appointed as the auditors for the JHSNS for the fiscal year 2014.

Carried

7. Nominating Report

Angela Power and Janis Aitken had formed the Nominating Committee this year.

Angela advised that two Directors have one year remaining in their two year term and

they would be:

Angela Power and Ivan Wyse

(JHSNS AGM Minutes June 25th, 2013)

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Seven Directors are re-offering to the Board:

Janis Aitken, Bob MacDonald, Dana Bowden, Terry Hatcher, Oscar Miller, Flora

Macleod and Don Clairmont

In order to start to bring a balance back to so that eventually half of the Directors will be

elected each year, Dana Bowden offered to accept re-election for a further one year term

and not the two year term for which she was nominated. This request was accepted.

A call for further nominations was made to the floor.

As no further nominations were received, the Chair declared the nomination process

closed.

Moved by Angela Power and seconded by Oscar Miller that the Nomination Report be

accepted as presented and amended. The positions were approved by acclamation.

Carried

8. Ratification of Acts of Directors:

MOTION by Bob MacDonald, seconded by Dana Bowden that all resolutions, contracts,

acts and proceedings of the Board of Directors of the Society since the last Annual General

Meeting of members, be approved.

Carried

9. Awards:

In recognition of the Presidents three consecutive terms, the Executive Director presented

a plaque to Janis Aitken on behalf of the Board of Directors.

Staff Recognition:

On behalf of the Board of Directors John presented staff with a thank you cards

containing an appropriate gift of appreciation on behalf of the Board of Directors.

Adjournment:

There being no further business meeting adjourned at 7:20 p.m. by Diana Wallis

(JHSNS AGM Minutes June 25th, 2013

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President’s Report

It seems like it was only yesterday since

I started my term as the President of The

John Howard Society of Nova Scotia,

but already a year has flown by. The

experience has been one of learning,

meeting interesting new people and

taking on new challenges. With the

support of our Board and also our

Executive Director the transition from

Board Director to President has been

quite seamless.

I have had an opportunity to meet most

of the JHSNS staff and have also met

with some again to get a better idea of

how each branch works and their focus.

It was a great experience to share ideas

and find out the daily challenges that

each of our staff face. It gives me great

pleasure to have such a great team

running each of these offices.

We have had some funding challenges

this year, which is always an ongoing

issue for the Society. Through

perseverance, staff has come up with

some new opportunities that have

helped. JHSNS ventured into some new

projects such as the Employment

Readiness Program (ERP). As President

of the board it is exciting to see the

organization venturing into new projects

and growing the portfolio of services we

are offering to our clients.

Some of the highlights of this year, for

me was the opportunity to travel to the

John Howard of Canada National

Conference and AGM, in Vancouver,

BC and to meet staff and board members

from other John Howard offices across

the country. It is quite a diverse group

and it’s wonderful to see all of the

different initiatives that other provinces

are working on and sharing successes

and challenges with them.

In addition to finding new services to

provide to our clients it is encouraging to

see the JHSNS becoming more

financially healthy after some lean years.

I’m confident that we will continue to

grow our presence in the community and

continue to offer a high level of service

to our clients. We will be continuing to

work on raising our profile in the

community and to help educate the

public about what benefits we can

provide, not only to our target group, but

also the community at large.

It has been a great experience serving on

the board so far and I look forward to

helping move the Society forward in the

months and years to come.

Flora Flora MacLeod, President

“As President of the board it is exciting to see the

organization venturing into new projects and growing the

portfolio of services we are offering to our clients.”


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Executive Director’s Report

The theme for this year is “Improving

through Collaboration”. The John

Howard Society of Nova Scotia has

always had active “partners”, but mostly

for funding purposes. This year we have

focused more on opportunities to

“collaborate” whether it is a funding

partner, another like minded

organization or an organization where

they were looking for services for their

clients that they thought we could help

them with. As you read the reports for

North Eastern, Central and Halifax

Regions you will see many examples of

where staff are improving the service we

provide through collaboration with

others.

This is now my seventh year as the

Executive Director. In the beginning I

thought that it would become easier as I

went along, but was I wrong! Perhaps it

is my driving desire to see us improve

and be better able to serve our clients, in

spite of the current environment in

which we find ourselves. Various

program budgets have not been

increased for many years. One of our

larger programs has had the same

operating level (excluding wages and

benefits) of funding for nine years in

spite of repeated requests. Another that

operates on a “fee-for-service basis has

not changed since 2002, again in spite of

repeated requests. Not many businesses

could continue to survive when faced

with the everyday cost increases and the

inability to charge more for the services

being provided. Our staff has been very

creative in managing our costs and to

them I owe a great debt of gratitude. We

have gone through the organization and

created much efficiency, but I feel we

have pretty much exhausted this as a go

forward strategy. Improving on our

collaborative efforts and perhaps looking

at developing a new “enterprise”

business model are options that will need

to be further flushed out in the days and

months ahead.

I am still of the view that there are many

opportunities for us. Working more with

volunteers who share a common interest

in what we do and who want to play an

“active” role in the Society is one

example. It is unrealistic to expect that

we can just add more layers of

programming demand on to our staff,

but I do feel that we have the capacity to

do more, but that we need to get better at

recruiting and retaining community

volunteers to assist us. This is simply

just another example of how we need to

improve our ability to work

collaboratively.

We did manage to grow in 2013/2014. In

“It is the long history of humankind those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. “

- Charles Darwin


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the Halifax Office, Natalie Cox went

from being a parttime permanent

employee to permanent fulltime.

Natalie Cox

Adrienne MacDonald

Adrienne MacDonald, who started with

us parttime in March 2013, also became

a fulltime employee in October.

In our North Eastern office, Diana

Wallis went from a fulltime contract

position to that of a fulltime employee.

Diana Wallis

Welcome to all!

For the last six months of fiscal year

2014 we were also fortunate in having

the services of Tess Warner and Erin

Levy who helped with preparing and

writing reports for our CA/PS contract

with CSC primarily during evenings and

weekends

JHSNS also had the opportunity to have

seven of our staff attend the National

John Howard of Canada Staff

Conference. Although the numbers were

down overall this year, as JHSC was

unable to get any financial assistance to

help with travel, it was still a great

learning event. This is the fifth time that

JHSNS has managed to get some of our

staff to this event.

This photograph, which came to me

recently, shows our own Susan Hughes

on the left, JHSC’s National Executive

Director Catherine Latimer in the middle

and our own Christina King engaged in

conversation at the conference.

Catherine was also one of the primary

authors of the YCJA.

“A great sharing moment!”

To our staff, our Board of Directors and

our supporters ~ many thanks!

John

John Peach - Executive Director


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North Eastern Region

The past year has brought exciting

experiences for the John Howard Society

Northern Region. We have had many

opportunities to increase both staff and

volunteer knowledge through a vast

array of workshops. Our training has

included such programs as “Safe Talk” a

suicide prevention workshop, Elder

Abuse and ageism workshop and

expanding our knowledge in the area of

Restorative Approaches in Schools.

We had opportunities to speak to various

groups and individuals about Restorative

Justice/Restorative Approaches. We

have talked to police detachments,

schools, corrections, Justice Minister

Peter Mackay and Judge Del Atwood.

The responses from all organizations and

individuals were very positive. Judge

Del Atwood stated that he knew if

someone went through The John

Howard Society’s Restorative Justice

Program he would not see them again.

Staff Sergeants, along with officers,

stated that youth going through the

Restorative Justice Program were held to

a higher standard of accountability then

those who go through the formal justice

system. I have been told that our

discussions with Minister MacKay

helped to secure the work of the

Aboriginal Restorative Justice Program

in Ontario.

New to Pictou County is the Northeast

Nova Scotia Correctional Facility, a 100

cell Correctional Facility. Construction

started in September of 2011 and is

expected to be operational in November

of this year. Upon learning that the

Correctional Facility was coming to our

area, staff put their heads together to

think about how we could provide

services to this Facility. One thought

that came to mind was a garden. We

knew that we would have to provide

supporting evidence on the benefits of a

garden, if we were to be successful in

seeing the garden project come to

fruition. We did research and put

together information that would support

such a venture and we presented the

materials to the management of the

facility. Much to our delight, the

Facility management were very open to

the idea and seem to be excited about the

prospects of having a garden program.

A further meeting took place in early

May 2014 between the Superintendent

of the Facility Tim Carroll, Deputy

Superintendent Steve MacDonald,

Provincial Program Officer Janice

“...gardening can have a positive impact on

physical, mental and emotional well-being of

offenders”


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Aiken, John Howard Society staff Susan

Hughes and Diana Wallis, as well as

three Dalhousie Agricultural Campus

representatives. During the meeting it

was felt that more information would be

needed to proceed with the project.

Everyone left the meeting with assigned

tasks such as soil testing, labour market

evaluation and various certification

options for programming. Our plan is to

meet again in June to discuss findings

and next steps. The focus of the

gardening project is to provide

certification to those who participate in

the program which will increase their

employability prospects. Also, gardening

can have a positive impact on physical,

mental and emotional well-being. My

hope is that the garden will not only

benefit the residence of the facility but

will also make a more pleasant working

environment for the staff and those

working with the inmates. We are very

excited and hopeful that a garden will be

operational at the Facility as early as

Spring 2015.

Last but certainly not least I want to

thank the staff Kate and Diana for all of

their hard work and dedication to our

clients and the community this past year,

working as individuals we can do many

good things and together we can do great

things!

Susan Hughes

Susan Hughes - Director

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Central Region

My annual report for 2013-14, highlights

the agency’s community involvement

which staff has been involved in this

past year. Our focus over the past year

has been on community engagement

while maintaining a high caseload.

Across the province community justice

agencies have seen a decrease in youth

“We continue to maintain excellent working

relationships with our justice partners”

Regional Director

- Christina King


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referrals. A three year glance, of

referrals received for JHS – Central

Region, shows a steady rate of referrals

being referred for both youth and adults.

Youth Adults

FY 2011-12 68 78

FY 2012-13 58 66

FY 2013-14 60 80

0102030405060708090

Referrals Received3 Year Overview

Community Engagement

JHS – Central Region was invited to

attend two round table discussions on the

Victims Bill of Rights with the Minister

of Justice, Peter Mackay and several

other justice advocates.

Our office partnered with Schools Plus

and the Women’s Resource Center to

deliver the Voices Program to a group of

girls ages 16 – 17 at the Cobequid

Education Center. Staff also enjoyed a

second year of mentoring with Big

Brother & Sisters (In School Mentoring

Program). Building relationships with

our mentees has been a positive

experience.

We are always delighted to have

students from various institutions

complete their work term at our office.

While students are on placement, they

receive information on the history of

John Howard, an orientation on

Restorative Justice and the Youth

Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). We are

pleased to offer learning and

foundational training to these young

students who are on their way to

potential careers within justice.

Crime Prevention Initiatives

The John Howard Society has helped

many young people deal with underlying

issues that have contributed to their

wrong doing. We continuously engaged

in crime prevention initiatives by

offering innovative support to our clients

and community. Once we have identified

the needs of our clients, we offer the

following resources; assistance with

employment search, personal

development, victim empathy,

information on justice related issues,

anger management, drug and alcohol

“Crime Prevention Works At The

Right Time For The Right Person” - Christina King

Regional Director


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awareness, shoplifting and any other

supports which may be needed.

JHS - Giving Back Program

The “Giving Back” program primarily is

a potential contract term in our

Restorative Justice contracts. We find

this works extremely well in cases where

no victim is identified. For example, a

drug related offense where youth/adults

would normally receive a fine or

community service work if referred to

court.

The Giving Back Program brought in

$2,184.00 in donations for 2013, which

was donated back to the community of

harm. Community Partners who received

donations were; SPCA, Boys & Girls

Club, Big Brothers & Big Sisters,

Family Resource Center, Third Place

Transition House, Mommy 2B and The

John Howard Society – Truro.

The “Giving Back” program is an

alternative way for clients to be held

accountable and appreciate the effect of

their behaviour in an effort to repair the

harm to the community. Clients appear

to like the idea of having a “hands on

approach” when physically purchasing

& delivering items to selected

community groups.

Restorative Justice Group at Nova

Institute for Women – Giving Back

Program

This project also offers inmates an

opportunity to see what it is like to “give

back” and do good in the community.

Our Restorative Justice group at Nova

Institute for Women donated 30 holiday

bags to residents at the Mira Long Term

Care Facility. Each bag contained

homemade Christmas cards and

ornaments, which were made by the

women & staff who participate in the RJ

group at Nova.

This is another example of restorative

work that can be done in the facility. It’s

a perfect opportunity to promote

community building through acts of

kindness. It enables the women at Nova

the opportunity to feel good about

themselves while helping others.

Through community donations, we

donated 30 (used) puzzles and two large

bags of yarn to Nova Institution for the

Giving Back Program. Some women

have expressed an interest to knit

blankets and scarves to donate to the

community.

I would like to acknowledge our staff,

Cindy Reid and Wanda Dickie for their

ongoing dedication to our clients. Also,

thank you to our community volunteers

and to our Board of Directors.

Christina King

Christina King - Director


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Halifax Region

The Halifax Regional Office has seen an

expansion of its community

involvement, programming and

volunteer program in 2013. The

following report briefly overviews the

new initiatives.

Anger Management & Emotional

Intelligence Program

Over the summer of 2013 we

implemented a new type of community

programming, open to adult men who

either self-identify or are mandated to

take anger management programming.

The Anger Management and Emotional

Intelligence Program focuses on

understanding emotions (particularly

anger) but also on enhancing

communication and stress management

skills so individuals are able to recognize

anger-provoking triggers and can then

communicate that emotion in a

productive manner. Natalie Cox has

been facilitating the program in both

group and private sessions.

During sessions, clients are generally

engaged and receptive to the knowledge,

strategies and techniques being

delivered, even those who have been

mandated to attend. Week to week, it has

been evident that clients apply their new-

found control over their emotions.

Natalie has noted that the program seems

to be a useful support to help our clients

with their anger issues while earning

reassurance for how they deal with the

problems (triggers) they are facing.

Community Work Team

To help increase community placement

options for clients of our Community

Workplace and Fine Options Programs

(CWP/FOP), our office developed the

idea to collect clients into groups to do

larger scale projects. This idea was

implemented as the JHS Community

Work Team in October, using volunteer

support to supervise group work projects

in order to fulfill client community

service hours. This initiative has

expanded our network of community

contacts and helped to raise our profile

in the community. We worked regularly

with the HRM (Transportation & Public

Works), Clean Nova Scotia and the

Provincial Adopt-A-Highway Program

for group projects during the warmer

months. However, finding group projects

during the winter months was a

challenge.

As part of this program, JHS adopted

three roadways within the HRM as part

of the Adopt-A-Highway Program:

North St in Halifax, Pleasant St in

Dartmouth, and Cobequid Rd in Lower

Sackville. We are responsible for two

clean-ups per year for three years at each

of these locations and our commitment

will be represented by signs at either end

of the roadway that read:

Adopt-A-Highway

Litter Clean Up

The John Howard Society of Nova

Scotia

Employment Readiness Program –

Pilot

From October 1, 2013 – May 31, 2014

we received funding from Employment

Nova Scotia to deliver the Employment

Readiness Program – Pilot (ERP). In

collaboration with Department of

Community Services (DCS), we offered


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two terms of programming to two

separate intake groups of adult men who

are on income assistance and who

identified their criminal record as a

primary barrier to employment. Program

activities were designed to span phases

of pre-employment, employability and

finding work and employment

maintenance. Other relevant community

resources were identified to participants,

and, as part of the continuum of care

built into the program, ERP staff offered

post-program support relevant to finding

and keeping work to all participants.

Program activities fostered personal and

social skill development, moving

towards stable lifestyles, practical

training and certifications opportunities,

job searching and interview preparation

and employment maintenance through

employee “best practices.” In terms of

outcomes, we can confidently say that

we improved the employability of every

participant who completed the program

and 63.6% of those participants were

connected with employment. ERP

helped the Halifax Office build a

stronger relationship with DCS, local

companies, and other community

organizations.

Healthy Relations Program

In the fall of 2013 the Halifax Office

developed the Healthy Relations

Program to help adult men and women

improve self-awareness of the types of

relationships they have with the people

in their lives. As we know, personal

boundaries vary with different kinds of

relationships. Further, relationships do

not always have a positive impact on us;

relationships can be either healthy or

unhealthy and can affect our lives

positively or negatively.

The program aims to help people

identify and understand the different

types of relationships in their life, how

those relationships impact them, and the

personal and/or social boundaries that

are appropriate for different types of

relationships. It works towards these

goals by:

- Outlining what constitutes a healthy

relationship

- Considering the people we have

relationships with (friends, family,

significant others, co-workers,

employers, teachers, etc),

- Identifying effective strategies for

developing and maintaining healthy

relationships

The program was developed as a half

day group program and has been piloted

to both terms of the Employment

Readiness Program.

The 2014 HRM Roundtable Review –

Offender Reintegration

Our JHSNS Board’s own Dr. Don

Clairmont was tasked in March of 2013

by the HRM Council as the principle

investigator to review the

implementation of recommendations

from the 2008 Mayor’s Roundtable on

Violence and Public Safety Report. The

project was also meant to identify new

issues relevant to violence and public

safety since the original report while

providing further suggestions for

proceeding with recommendations that

would improve the current landscape.

Dr. Clairmont recruited the collaboration

of a number of colleagues to form a team

of experts on various issues of violence

and public safety in the HRM.


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Certified

The Halifax Office proudly contributed

to The 2014 HRM Roundtable Review.

JHS efforts focused most directly on

researching and writing the supplemental

report Offender Reintegration in the

Halifax Regional Municipality (in The

2014 HRM Roundtable Review, Volume

II: Supplemental Reports).

A number of meetings and interviews

were conducted to inform the report.

Although it was a lot of work, JHS

participation in the roundtable review

project seemed to raise our profile in the

community and put us back in contact

with a number of related community

organizations. (The report was presented

to the Halifax Regional Council on May

13, 2014 and approved.)

Record Suspension Application

Service

In December the Halifax Office formally

began offering a service to assist clients

with record suspension applications.

After researching the process, we

developed an eligibility assessment to

help determine whether or not clients are

ready to apply for a record suspension (a

public copy is now available on our

website). On a case by case basis, we are

now prepared to offer guidance to clients

through the record suspension

application process.

In collaboration with Department of

Community Services (DCS), the Halifax

Office has also developed a service to

provide both financial support and

guidance through the many steps of the

application process to DCS clients. This

service takes a very different form than

much of the other work done by the

Halifax office, but we believe it

addresses a real demand among our

clientele. Our clients and their

caseworkers have been very grateful for

the service.

Creative Writing Workshops –

CNSCF Programming

In March the Halifax Office started

offering regular Creative Writing

Workshops at Central Nova Scotia

Correctional Facility. Driven by a

volunteer who is a published poet and

short story writer, Creative Writing

Workshops are delivered to groups of

inmates using the facilities and resources

of the institution’s education program.

On the first workshop series, our

volunteer reported, “The men in the

workshops have been terrific, treat me

and each other with great dignity, and

work hard.” After six sessions with one

wing, the workshop series rotates to

another wing in the institution. The

facilitator works with male and female

inmates, although not within the same

workshop series.

Management and case managers of the

institution were quite interested in the

program and worked to implement it in a

very timely fashion following the

proposal presentation.

Volunteers & Membership

To achieve success with all of these new

initiatives, our office relied on the work

and support of volunteers. We attended

the Saint Mary’s Volunteer Fair and

reached out to a number of departments

in HRM’s Universities and NSCC

campuses to recruit volunteers in 2013.

By designating a Volunteer Coordinator,

we were able to grow our volunteer

program considerably (from one to ten

volunteers). A larger volunteer base also

meant enhancing community awareness


14

Certified

of our programs and services,

particularly among community agencies

with similar client groups and those of

the younger generations pursuing

education or work in relevant

disciplines.

We had one student placement in 2013

who was especially helpful with

implementing our Community Work

Team and providing support for the

Employment Readiness Program. Our

office is very interested in taking on

more student placements in the future, as

we see the arrangement as mutually

beneficial and providing an excellent

opportunity to develop and implement

new initiatives.

In an effort to replenish and grow our

membership base, all volunteer

applicants are presented with

information about becoming a member

of the Society during their volunteer

screening interview. A significant

portion of our volunteers have also

chosen to become members of the

Society.

The Halifax Office would like to thank

both our volunteers and members for

their support in 2013! We hope you will

continue your involvement into 2014.

Overall, the Halifax Office has reached

some major achievements that staff hope

to carry into the next fiscal year. Raising

our community profile, expanding

programs and services, and broadening

our network of community contacts,

while strengthening existing community

partnerships are accomplishments that

we will continue to build on.

~~~

I would like to acknowledge the

tremendous help and cooperation of the

Halifax staff during this past year and in

particular for their collaboration in

writing the Halifax report. John Peach John Peach, Executive Director

“No one can go back and make a brand

new start. Anyone can start from now

and make a brand new ending.”

64th Annual General Meeting 2013-2014 ANNUAL REPORT

Documents

Transcript of 64th Annual General Meeting 2013-2014 ANNUAL REPORT