Large family connection centre in Kelowna will replace services offered at Starbright

A 12,000 square foot space at the Capri Centre Mall in Kelowna is being renovated to become one of four new family connection centres in B.C.

The provincial government is changing the delivery of support services for children and has chosen four communities for its Family Connection Centre (FCC) pilots, including Kelowna.

In an email to Global News, the Ministry of Children and Family Development stated, “to grow and expand service available to families, the Ministry undertook a selection process inviting service providers to submit proposals outlining how they could deliver services to families through Family Connection Centre pilots.”

ARC Programs was selected as the successful operator in the Central Okanagan.

ARC is a private company that has provided support services to Okanagan children and youth for 32 years.

“We’ve provided a whole continuum of services during that period of time for kids and families, and a lot of like, sort of youth-specific services,” said ARC Programs CEO Shane Picken. “In the last 10 years, we have concentrated much more around children, youth with special needs, support needs, those types of services.”

The service delivery change means that the Starbright Children’s Development Centre will have to close for good after 57 years of serving Central Okanagan children, something Starbright management is not happy about.

“The definition of pilot does not mean that you destroy what currently exists and put something else in place just to see if it works. A pilot should be something in addition to what currently exists to see if there is a better way of doing it,” said Starbright executive director Rhonda Nelson. “And if it doesn’t work, I don’t know what will be there for parents and for families.”

The non-profit organization, which serves children from birth to school entry age, applied for the contract and was shocked not to receive it and become part of the province’s new hub model system.

“We have the facilities, we have the background, we’ve got the personnel,” Nelson said. “In one department, in our physiotherapy department, there’s over 100 years of experience based on the people within that department.”

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The new family connection centre, which will replace services currently offered at Starbright, is expected to be up and running in April or May.

“We’ve put together a coalition of agencies that have specific expertise in the different areas of service that are going to be needed, and we will all work together out of the family connection center, and other locations in the community,” Picken said.

ARC, which is receiving $14 million per year from the government to run the family connection centre, will be sub-contracting out services to other private companies and not-for-profit organizations to help deliver services.

“You’re going get the same or similar services through the new system, and it won’t be limited to zero to six,” Picken said. “Kids have different needs that manifest over the course of their lifetime, so we’re serving zero to 18.”

Picken assured families currently in the system that they will get first priority to access services.

“We won’t be opening to the public until everybody that’s currently being served at Starbright or other agencies have access to us,” he said.

Nelson said Starbright put forth a very strong application for the contract, even outlining how it would have developed its programs to meet the needs of older children.

“I can’t imagine that the proposal that we had provided would not have been deemed very, very workable, very doable, and would have served the needs of the Central Okanagan in an extraordinary way,” she said.

Starbright serves about a thousand children every year.

Nelson said she worries about the transition the children and families now face as a result of this decision.

“It is not an easy thing for families who have children who depend on a team approach for services to start anew,” she said.

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