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The Province of Manitoba announced last week, an investment of nearly $29 million toward supporting disability services and increasing wages of staff that provide them.

New Directions has been selected to receive $8 million from this fund, for the development of the two-year Bridge Program for Children and Youth with a disability pilot. The initiative will develop innovative service options to further support families and avoid the placement of children with a disability in Child and Family Services (CFS) care.

“New Directions is very pleased to be given this opportunity to expand our provision of innovation service options to address the needs of children and youth with disabilities. We look forward to working with families involved with the Children’s Disability Services to support them in caring for their loved ones,” said Dr. Jennifer Frain, CEO of New Directions.

You can read the Provincial Government’s News release here.

What’s New at New Directions?

Our staff and the individuals we support have been busy this past month, and we have plenty of good news to share with all of you.

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Storybook Translated into Ukrainian & Russian

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You step outside into an unusually cold Manitoba winter, and you’re met with the customary bone-chilling breeze. The shiver that runs through you is followed by one of the ensembles of complaints about the weather, and the longing for warm summer sun and green grass fill your mind.

You might not enjoy the long, cold winters, but the thick winter jacket on your back makes them bearable, at least for a short amount of time, until that windchill hits and tears freeze in your eyes before they can form.

The winter jacket, an essential to survive the quickest of trips to the car to grab a forgotten phone or a bag of groceries, is something many of us take for granted when the snow begins to fall.

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Not Alex though. Alex doesn’t take his new winter jacket for granted. Not when being jacket-less kept him confined in his house with his mom in the hospital and two younger siblings to look after.

Thankfully, other supports provided winter clothing and food for his two younger siblings, but being over 18 years old, Alex wasn’t given the same support. Instead, he was unable to attend school or any of the other community programs he was a part of.

Alex’s family has been involved with New Directions for quite a while, both of his siblings being a part of our FASD Support, Education and Counselling Program. When a program Clinician heard that Alex was confined to the house, they submitted a request to our Endowment Fund to purchase him a new winter jacket and proper footwear.

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The request was approved, and Alex is now the enormously proud owner of a new winter jacket and a pair of runners to keep himself warm as he navigates Winnipeg Transit on his way to school and community activities every day.

The Clinician that submitted the request says that Alex is beyond thankful for the support, which has only been possible thanks to donations to our Endowment Fund.

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Two years ago, Covid-19 changed life at New Directions.

The world is a different place since 2020, full of new challenges and hardships, but our staff and service providers have met those challenges head-on.

Services have gone from in-person to virtual, and back again with varying levels of capacity, and our staff have managed to navigate these changes and continue to provide the best services available.

When we thought things were headed towards a sense of normalcy, a fire blazed through the first floor of our main office at 717 Portage, throwing our services into disarray once again. Without access to a building, some Service Areas were put on hold, while others graciously offered their time and skill to get us up and running.

Thankfully, we have been able to find a temporary home until ours is repaired.

For the time being, our front-line staff will remain diligent and be required to wear their masks indoors during work hours. New hires are also required to be fully vaccinated.

We can’t guess where things will take us in the future, but we know our staff are more than capable of meeting those challenges with bravery and courage and giving the best services possible to individuals supported by our programs.

And, we hope that you can help them too by keeping them safe and getting your Covid-19 vaccine.

Children experiencing trauma from fleeing the war in Ukraine will be receiving copies of Big Feelings Come and Go, a storybook which helps families understand and manage difficult emotions.

This is possible thanks to our partners at The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), and Suojellaan Lapsia, a Finnish child protection organization, who will provide copies of the book, translated in Ukrainian and Russian, to families seeking refuge in Finland.

Developed by therapists, Big Feelings Come and Go explains the body’s fight, flight, and freeze reactions to children, helping them understand and manage difficult emotions.

For more information on The Canadian Centre for Child Protection, visit their website.

Update on the Fire at 717 Portage Ave.

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Good afternoon  everyone!

As you may already know, the fire at our main office site, at 717 Portage Avenue on January 3^rd has resulted in significant damage.  Half of the first floor was incinerated and has been off limits to staff since the day of the fire.  The smoke from the fire centred in the main floor kitchen area on the Opikihiwawin/Resources for Adolescent Parents side of the building travelled quickly through the building leaving nasty soot on EVERYTHING throughout the building. 

With this, all ceiling tiles are being replaced and all soft materials (e.g., upholstery, work station walls, carpets) are being tested to see if they are salvageable with cleaning or need to be replaced.  All computer equipment and other electronics are likely no longer good as this soot is corrosive and eats away at electronics over time. 

Luckily, restoration experts in this type of work have been on site since January 4^th and are working with amazing speed. But, given the scope of work, it is very likely we will all be working outside of this building for several to many months.  We have no exact estimation of the time frame because many things have yet to be understood fully (e.g., damage to the mechanics of the building and best route to fix). 

In the meantime, we immediately moved to get a mail and delivery depot at one of our buildings at 574 on Erin St. This is a small space but is serving the immediate need. We were also offered lots of help from the community, our peers and realtors/landlords among others. 

To our staff, please do all that you can to continue working hard for the people we support. Not having a central site for them to come to is, and has been, difficult.   Hopefully soon we will be  more accessible than we are today.

I thank all the staff of 717 for their work to empty the building of their personal belongings and for being so supportive overall in managing this massive disruption. 

I can only believe that New Directions will emerge, yet again, stronger and even more cohesive after living through this latest challenge that’s been thrown at us!

On we go New Directions!!

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Dr. Jennifer Frain, CEO
New Directions

Photo from The Winnipeg Free Press

For the time being, our mailing address has changed until operations out of our main office can resume.

For now, all mail can be sent to:

New Directions
574 Erin Street
Winnipeg, MB R3G 2V9

Fire at Main Office Building