CfEE Podcast Series: Innovate, Implement, Inspire

In this episode we explore another social enterprise - the HOpe Cafe in North Vancouver, a first of its kind in British Columbia. This episode features an interview with another leader in social enterprise space in the Lower Mainland. Sandra Severs is Executive Director of the North and West Vancouver Branch of Canadian Mental Health Association which owns and operates Hope Café in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health. Hope Café is a Blenz Coffee located in the HOpe Centre at Lions Gate Hospital that offers a supported and inclusive work environment for those with lived experience with mental health. In this interview, Sandra takes us inside the cafe's operations and shares with us its successes, challenges and upcoming opportunities.   Music Intro and Outro: Computer by State Shirt

In this episode, we take a look at the social enterprise – a business model that many non-profit and community organizations in BC and elsewhere are leveraging to support a social mission. I sat down with Darrell Burnham, CEO of Coast Mental Health, a non-profit organization based in the Lower Mainland with the mission to advocate, support and promote recovery of person with mental illness. Coast Mental Health operates three social enterprises, including Café 335, which provides Opportunity Youth the skills, experience and confidence to transition back into the mainstream workforce. Darrell discusses Coast Mental Health’s involvement in the social enterprise sector over the years, including some the successes, challenges and lessons that have been learned along the way.   Music Intro and Outro: Computer by State Shirt

Mergers are the most integrated form of collaboration, where the governance of distinct organizations become legally linked. In 2014, two non-profit housing societies, Lookout Emergency Aid Society, based in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Keys Housing and Health Solutions, based out of Surrey, merged into a single entity. In this episode, Shayne Williams, the new Executive Director of the Lookout Society, speaks about the transition of Keys to Lookout. He tells us more about the process that led to the merger and some of the early outcomes. Click here for the brief mentioned in the episode that describes the merger.   Music Intro and Outro: Computer by State Shirt

Many of us are familiar with coops. Mountain Equipment Co-op, Vancity and the Kootenay Co-op are all examples. What makes co-ops different from other businesses? Co-ops are owned and controlled by the people who use their services. These services cross all economic sectors including financial, health, housing and the employment services delivered by the Fraser Works Co-operative, the subject of the Centre’s second podcast episode. In this episode I was joined by Joan Andersen, Director of Employment and Language Programs at MOSAIC, a multilingual non-profit organization dedicated to addressing issues that affect immigrants and refugees in the course of their settlement and integration into Canadian society. MOSAIC is one of four agencies, along with AWARE Society, Fraserside Community Services Society and Pacific Community Resources that formed the Fraser Works Co-op in 2012, which delivers the Employment Program of BC (EPBC) in Burnaby and New Westminster.   Contact Information: Joan Andersen: jandersen@mosaicbc.com ____________________________________________________________________ Music Intro and Outro: Computer by State Shirt

For those not familiar with the Employment Program of BC, or EPBC, the route to finding a job in BC changed significantly when EPBC launched in April 2012 with 85 WorkBC Centres opening their doors across the province. A range of provincial and federal employment programs was replaced with an integrated, one-stop approach serving all unemployed British Columbians looking for work. EPBC services include self-serve job search services, as well as client needs assessment, case management and other employment service options for those needing more individualized services, to prepare for, find and maintain sustainable employment. One of the unique elements of EPBC is that each contractor is required to partner with other community agencies to deliver these services at each centre. In this episode we are joined by Val Meaney, Executive Director of North Island Employment Foundations Society (or NIEFS, which is the contractor for two WorkBC Centres on Vancouver Island) and Maureen Hunter, Supervisor of Employment Services at Campbell River and District Association for Community Living (or CRADACL.) Both organizations are based out of Campbell River.   Contact Information: Val Meaney: www.niefs.net / val.meaney@niefs.net / 250-286-3441 Maureen Hunter: www.cradacl.bc.ca / maureen.hunter@cradacl.bc.ca / 250-202-3133 ____________________________________________________________________ Music Intro and Outro: Computer by State Shirt