Thirty years ago as Kathleen Waxer sat in her new office in the Jasper Activity Centre she knew there had to be a better way to serve the residents of Jasper.
It was February 1986 and she had just been hired to oversee the town鈥檚 Family and Community Support Services (FCSS), a patchwork of human services that was doing its best to help Jasper鈥檚 most vulnerable residents.
Determined to do better, Waxer envisioned a bold new model that would ultimately revolutionize Jasper鈥檚 human services and earn her accolades amongst her peers and colleagues for years to come.
鈥淚 feel like it was work I was born to do,鈥� said Waxer, who was recently recognized by the municipality for her 30 years of service.
Through much of the late 80s and early 90s, Jasper鈥檚 human services were fragmented and difficult to access.
Recognizing the shortcomings of the existing service-delivery model, Waxer set out to create an inclusive, locally managed one-stop shop that would meet the needs of the community.
One of her first tasks was to overhaul the interagency council, a monthly meeting between various agencies in town.
鈥淲hat I found was that each person would go around the table and would talk about what they saw in the community, but there was very little coordination between the agencies.
鈥淲hile it was valuable to hear about everyone鈥檚 problems, I kept thinking that there鈥檚 got to be a better way.鈥�
Frustrated by the inefficiency of the existing model, she began meeting with various stakeholders in town, such as the chair of the local hospital board, to try and find a better way to coordinate services in the community.
Unfortunately, at that time, her vision ran counter to popular opinion.
鈥淭here were ideas swirling around at that time about how we could work better together, but in the Ralph Klein era, systems began to change and they got rid of locally managed services,鈥� said Waxer, referring to the policies of Alberta鈥檚 former premier.
Under Klein, the provincial government centralized services and began using consultants to try and streamline services.
鈥淭hey hired consultants and then sent them out to communities to gather stakeholders around a table and asked people to dream big about how they could make a difference in their community,鈥� recalled Waxer.
Taking their advice, Waxer not only started to dream up a brand new way of providing services, she began to imagine what services would look like if they were designed for people instead of just to fill an agency鈥檚 mandate.
To achieve her vision, her first task was to create a more effective system than the interagency council in order to tackle the complex, multidimensional issues faced by people in the community.
鈥淚 needed a mechanism to tap into the wisdom, skills and passion in the community, so I created what鈥檚 called the Jasper Community Team (JCT),鈥� said Waxer, explaining聽JCT facilitates the collaboration and pooling of resources between聽agencies, individuals and businesses in town to create a consistent one-stop-shop service delivery model.
From there she set out to convince people to buy into her vision.
鈥淓ssentially what I tried to do was convince people that instead of launching their own individual initiatives or programs if they could essentially take their drops of funding and allow them to pool into something bigger we could create something more substantial for the community.鈥�
While in theory it seemed like a logical thing to do, her vision was met with opposition.
鈥淭here were some people who were vehemently opposed to the idea, but there were also people who believed in the vision and who helped to make it happen,鈥� said Waxer.
鈥淎t the beginning it challenged people鈥檚 views on power and control. It was a huge paradigm shift.鈥�
Another challenge was persuading the municipality to provide the space and funding to keep the lights on.
鈥淚 convinced the municipality that if they supported us we could then determine what services looked like instead of being at the whim of the provincial government,鈥� said Waxer, explaining the municipality pays for the agency鈥檚 overhead costs while provincial grants pay for the salaries of outreach workers.
Fast-forward to 2016, Community Outreach Services (COS), which falls under the umbrella of聽Jasper's Community and Family Services department, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and now employs six full-time outreach workers who are each responsible for a different lifestage from early childhood to adulthood. An Alberta Supports worker is also expected to join COS in February.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a super simple idea, but to some degree it鈥檚 revolutionary,鈥� said Waxer, explaining her idea was to designed a model that provides specific support to different age groups to avoid stigmatizing services.
鈥淭he types of problems people face are different for a 20-year-old from Newfoundland who just arrived in Jasper, versus a young family with two young children, versus someone who is elderly,鈥� said Waxer.
The results have been extraordinary and both the municipality and the provincial government have recognized the program.
鈥淐ommunity Outreach Services is the fabric of the community,鈥� said Brian Nesbitt, a Jasper town councillor.
鈥淲e鈥檙e extremely lucky to have such a dedicated and strong person in this position to champion these services here in Jasper.鈥�
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
