Burnaby Family Life Institute, one of the city's largest non-profit social service agencies, is stretched to its financial limits and is turning away pregnant women and new moms in dire need of help.
Burnaby Family Life runs programs in Burnaby and New Westminster for pregnant women and new moms, many are recent immigrants or refugees and all of whom are facing multiple barriers, like drug and alcohol addiction, poverty, isolation, homelessness or violence in the home.
Lisa Lothian, supervisor for the agency's pre-and post-natal services says Burnaby Family Life is turning away vulnerable women because the programs are full and there's not enough government funding to make room for more.
"We are so far over capacity, we're serving on average about five people more in each group than what we are funded for," Lothian said. "We're trying to do more with less, and it's getting impossible."
The agency's prenatal program helped approximately 126 women last fiscal year in Burnaby and New Westminster, yet they turned away 58 pregnant women at risk. In the same period, the postnatal program helped 114 women and turned away 21.
"It's sickening, it's too many. These are all women who are eligible for the group, they are in crisis," Lothian said.
The programs offer lunch once a week, referrals to other services and education on subjects such as prenatal care, postpartum and perinatal depression and breastfeeding. The women are referred to the programs by social workers, public health nurses, doctors and immigration workers, among others. Burnaby Family Life prioritizes the most urgent cases, but the agency's been forced to turn away women who are in abusive relationships or are struggling with mental illness, zero income and no food, according to Lothian.
"They should not be turned away from service," she said. "We need to open up another program. We are stretched to capacity, not just with clients, but also with staffing."
Jeanne Fike, executive director for Burnaby Family Life, said the agency has been running a $30,000 deficit for the pre-and postnatal programs.
"We've been carrying this for a few years, and it's been growing, and we just aren't in a position to carry it anymore. These are the highest risk mothers and children in the community," Fike said. "Our president and directors want to take this forward to government to see what can be done. We're just desperate."
Fike said the agency is also turning people away from family resource programs, where parents can drop in with their children for the chance to integrate in the community, learn English and find friends.
Burnaby Family Life relies on a patchwork of funding from multiple sources, including the provincial and federal government and various donors. Fike said the plan is to wait and see which party forms government in the May 14 election and then ask for adequate funding from the provincial and federal governments.
"We haven't had any funding increases for over a decade, and demand just keeps rising and rising, and the population grows, and the complexity grows," Fike said. "It's such a cost effective program. It is saving taxpayers and government ministries so much money, because we're alleviating the need for mental health and other crisis intervention services, like MCFD (the Ministry of Children and Family Development) having to remove children. We've got community supports that are deeply rooted and providing a social safety net," Fike added. "I want all parties to understand the desperate circumstance of these women and children, and if we don't pay now, we will pay later, so it's a very wise investment."
The NOW caught up with Christy Clark campaigning in Burnaby on Friday and asked what her party could do to help if the Liberals form government again.
"You don't have to tell me how important Burnaby Family Life is because my mother co-founded it in a church basement in Burnaby with the priest at our church," she said.
Clark said the group started as a small organization that taught parenting skills.
"Since then, obviously, Burnaby Family Life, with Jeanne Fike and other great leadership, has blossomed into a multi-service agency, and I know those services are really important, so absolutely we will work with them to make sure they can continue to provide the services that they need to provide," she said. "But I will say this: the way government gets the money to be able to support organizations that provide those necessary services is growing the economy. So the number 1 thing we have to do is elect a government that's going to grow our economy in B.C., put people to work, and that's how we are going to pay for all those services that matter."
Kathy Corrigan, the NDP's Burnaby-Deer Lake candidate, said Burnaby Family's Life's program is exactly the type the NDP would invest in, under the "preventive medicine" approach.
"In addition, we have stated in our platform that we are going to have a legislated poverty reduction strategy with targets," Corrigan said. "There would be funding in that that would perhaps cover a program like the pregnancy outreach program because we are talking about vulnerable populations."
