From a modest start in 1969: the story of SIGN

The Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbours (SIGN) first opened an office in Yorkton on May 1, 1969. To quote from one of the first newsletters that year, “SIGN hopes to produce the product called Community Unity, a community in which people care about people. So we promote co-operation between churches, service organizations and other agencies throughout the community.” 

Today, SIGN offers two dozen services not only in Yorkton, but also in other communities in east-central Saskatchewan. We spoke with two previous executive directors and the current CEO about the growth of the organization, the services it offers and how they were developed, and we look beyond today to see where SIGN may go in the years ahead.

Transcript

Dick DeRyk 0:00

Yorton was a typical prairie small city in 1968 when the idea first surfaced of establishing an organization that could assist the community in ways that were not possible for individual churches, which largely were the refuge and source of assistance for those facing hardships. The population was about 13,000. The traditional Protestant and Catholic churches were mostly located in the downtown area. Television consisted of one channel, and one newspaper and one radio station served the city and area. Shopping was done downtown. The first mall on West Broadway, where the casino is now located, wasn't built until four years later, and stores were mostly closed on Wednesday afternoons, some staying open late on Friday evenings. On the east side, the city stopped at Drakeup Avenue. The only thing beyond that was the drive-in theater at what is now the newest shopping area at the southeast corner of Highway 9 and Broadway. Life was infinitely simpler, but even then there was a recognition that there were people living in Yorkton who needed assistance to cope with that life. Father Paul St. Pierre of St. Gerard Roman Catholic Church, Reverend Jack Jones of St. Andrews United Church, Reverend William Shank of Westview United Church, and Reverend Roland Wood of Holy Trinity Anglican Church put their heads together to come up with a concept built on cooperation to serve the greater good of the community. The result was the Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbors, which opened its doors on May 1, 1969. Its state of purpose, as set out in the first newsletter that year, was this to produce the product called Community Unity, a community in which people care about people. So we promote cooperation between churches, service organizations, and other agencies throughout the community. They saw the organization, the acronym being STINE for short, offering services such as an information and drop-in center, psychological consultant services, a youth hostel, a program for homemakers, and a radio program. The first board expanded the scope of expertise and interest. It consisted of Father Len Matusniak of St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church, World Bank Manager Brian Smith, businessmen Mike Keystuk and L. Porter, Reverend Ray Glenn of the Presbyterian Church, Accountant Ernie Quine, Reverend Jones, and Reverend Wood. Father St. Pierre became the managing director of the new organization, and Kathy Devers was the administrative assistant, the only other employee. It set up an office on 3rd Avenue North, then in 1970 moved into the former Massey Harris Farm Equipment Headquarters building at the corner of Broadway and Myrtle Avenue, which had been purchased by the accounting firm of Parker Quine, which also relocated there. Sign operated there until 1978, when it moved into offices on Livingston Street next to the Belmoral Hotel. Those buildings no longer exist. The space is now the parking lot of the credit union. In 1991, Sine moved into the former Angus Spice School on North Street, which the public school board had closed, and in 2005 it was given the former Corona Motor Hotel, which was also briefly a travel lodge, by its owners. Father St. Pierre managed the organization for two years. He was followed by Alton Davidge, who over the span of nine years ending in 1980, was instrumental in establishing the organization and its expanded services in Yorkton. He was succeeded by Clay Serby, a social worker with the provincial government, who was there until 1991, resigning to successfully run for and be elected as the MLA for Yorkton. He was followed by a three-year span managed by Wink Howland, when the organization largely maintained the status quo and concentrated on existing services. Wink was followed by Tom Steeley and a period of renewed expansion. When Tom retired, another short stint of status quo under Richard Sevene, who was succeeded by the current CEO, Andrew Sedley, in 2011. The budget for Stein in its first year was $12,940, largely funded by local churches and affiliated religious organizations. When Clay Sturby left, it was $600,000. Under Tom Seeley, it grew to $3 million. In the 25-26 fiscal year, the budget passed $7 million. Of that $7 million, SIN needs to raise about 30% through donations, fees for services, rentals, and other sources of revenue. The rest is earned through contracts with all three levels of government, city, provincial, and federal, in return for providing services and programs that would otherwise be government delivered or not available. When Stein first became active in Yorkton in May of 1969, one of the founding fathers, literally, took on the job of managing the new organization, Father Paul St. Pierre. For the first year, Stein worked out of an office that was likely located in his church before moving into the Massy Harris building with Parker Quine. The activities of Sign were modest that first year. Counseling services were offered in conjunction with the Saskatchewan Psychological Association. It provided information and referrals, hosted a CJGX radiophone in program called Sign Listens, and became advocates for the development of a kindergarten program in the city. Its second year saw the start of a major new program offering the first comprehensive home care service in Yorton. It was managed by Emma Shepard, who became a pioneer in the field. Four services were offered home maintenance, home nursing, homemaker assistance, and a little later meals on wheels. Home care was new to Yorton, but not new to the province. Starting back in 1962, several non-government agencies, primarily in Regina, Moosjaw, and Prince Albert, set up pilot projects funded by the federal and provincial governments. And in 1965, a pilot project was set up in Central Butte to see if home care was viable in rural areas. But even that wasn't the start of health care services delivered in the home. The Victorian Order of Nurses, known as VON, had been doing that since 1898, establishing a cottage hospital first in Regina and soon also in Yorkton, Indian Head, Melfort, Central Butte, and Esteban. Research conducted in 1999 at the University of Regina notes that home care programs were started in the Yorkton and Swift Current Health regions in 1969. Whether that was the same program that Stein took up at the time is not something that can be determined with certainty. There are few, if any, records from those very early years. What is known is that by 1979, the provincial government was heavily involved and established 45 district home care boards to manage home care delivery across the province. Some was delivered by contracted non-government agencies, some by public health staff. Signed continued to deliver some services, including the Meals on Wheels program. It started in 1974. That was transferred to the District Home Care Board ten years later. Back in 1970, Sign programs included a thrift shop, an indigenous leather craft project, including the marketing of the craft items produced, a drop-in lounge, and assistance for groups and individuals with the filling in of various forms. Father Saint Pierre left Sign, and at some point left the priesthood and moved to British Columbia, where he married and raised a family. His successor was also a pastor, ordained by the United Church, Elton Davidge, who ended up in Yorkton along with his wife Phyllis, having made their way west from the Maritimes and Ontario. It was Elton who firmly established Sign as an important Yorkton organization and greatly expanded the range of services. In his first year, Phyllis was instrumental in starting the Sign Daycare, the first licensed daycare in the city, operated by a board consisting of parents. Phyllis was an inspiration to many and was totally dedicated to providing quality care for children. That year, the collection of toys and gifts at Christmas time started, something still done every December to this day. The next year, a senior citizen lounge and drop-in center opened, and Stein became involved in advocating for various social action programs, including a petition to create the first crosswalks in Yorkten. In 1973, it assisted with the creation of the Parkland Legal Assistance Society, which opened a clinic in Yorkton in November of 1974, staffed by two lawyers, a community development worker, and two administrative assistants. It was the second such service in the province, opening a month after Swift Current. As mentioned earlier, Meals on Wheels was started in 1974. The Consumer Help Office was opened that year, and Stein provided assistance to the victims of major fires that destroyed two apartment blocks on Bradbrook Drive. In 1977 and 1978, two group homes were established. One a residential facility for persons with long-term mental illnesses, and then a group home for adolescents to assist them to resolve personal and or family issues, to prepare them to return successfully to the care of parents or guardians, or to provide ongoing support leading to independent living. That program continues to this day. With home care moving to the management by others, Elton established two programs that were designed to fill a gap: handyman services called the Odd Job Squad and Yorkton House Dusters. In his final year, Sine also provided support for the Local Alcoholism Society and for programs providing job opportunities for youth and students. Elton and Phyllis retired in 1980 and moved to Vancouver Island, where they stayed active in various community projects. They had married in 1940 and had a son and a daughter. Elton died in 1990, at which time Syned established a high school student scholarship fund in his name. Phyllis died in 2007. Clay Sturby was a social worker in Yorkton with the provincial government, working in the area of child and family services. The board hired him to take over from Elton Davidge, and he started in 1980, by which time Stein was located on Livingston Street next to the Belmoral Hotel. He spent the next 11 years guiding and expanding the organization, serving on Yorkton City Council, and leaving in 1991 to pursue a new challenge. He was elected as MLA for Yorkton, was a cabinet minister, and eventually deputy premier until health challenges convinced him to leave politics in late 2007. He and Trish now live in Oliver, British Columbia. You took over in 1981 from Elton Davich. Were those big shoes to fill?

Clay Serby 13:15

They were extremely big shoes to fill. And I was quite uh anxious about taking on the job, partly because I'd never worked in a non-profit organization. I was used to working in environments where there are rooms full of professionally trained people. This wasn't the case at sign. There was lots of voluntary work that was being done there. And I had security from where I was coming from, working in the government. There was no security working in this particular organization, or for that matter, any other like it. And Elton was so well known in the community for all of the community work that he had done and uh in the direction that he had taken the organization. And the way he drew it from its very beginnings, when you're following somebody like that who's done such a tremendous job in the community, well known. It was a uh a daunting task, I gotta say, for me.

Dick DeRyk 14:17

You were there for eleven years, took the organization, seems to be in in more of a professional direction. Initially it was largely volunteer driven. As you mentioned, uh a lot of volunteers doing doing the work due to budget restraints because when you took over, the budget was very small.

Clay Serby 14:40

In those years, a lot of that money was raised in the community by the volunteers. You know, we had places like the United Way that even got a fairly significant chunk of money from the work that Felton has done. He had foreign connections with a lot of the service groups. I didn't have the same connection. My connection was more towards uh government programs, and so I could go there. That's why we got a lot of the provincial programs that we did get because we were able to go there, because I knew some of those people. Was that the start of contractual arrangements with government to provide services? Most of it was. Government had its own group of individuals who were looking after various different sectors of the services that were being provided. You had a consultant that you were working with. Yeah, very much so engaged with the professional training on the government side.

Dick DeRyk 15:36

You also, partway through your term, halfway through your term, took advantage of a program where staff could get computer training in the mid to later 80s. That was pretty much cutting edge.

Clay Serby 15:50

It became fairly clear at that period of time that we were moving into a different age, moving into a technology age. We needed to train people to be able to work in that environment. And so the federal government had some programs available. We took uh advantage of them. Staff took advantage of them. The other thing that we could see in working very closely with our auditor, Jack McCain, did our auditing for the whole time I was there. Jack made a really strong case for us moving into a more structured way of recording our financing, uh, ensuring that we're accounting for our financing in an appropriate fashion.

Dick DeRyk 16:32

The other thing that happened during your term in the late 80s, you moved out of offices downtown into an abandoned school called Angus Spice School on North Street. Yep. Where they still are. How did that come about?

Clay Serby 16:48

What we saw happening is that I mean our building was old. We were outgrowing it in rapid at a rapid pace. And so we needed more space. We were really cramped, and we used every little chunk of space that we had available in the building on on Livingston. The school board, of course, was uh abandoning that school. They were shutting it down. They were building uh a couple of other schools in the city. We heard that they were doing this, we went to them and said, Would you be interested in cutting a deal with us? And they said, Sure, you know, we'd be happy to cut a deal with you. There's uh whole bunch of things that need to get done physically to the building in order for it to be able to accommodate you. And so uh we agreed to do that. And so that's uh kind of how it it came about. Linda Zigwell at that point was the chair of the school board and we could work closely with Linda. She helped us put a lot of that together and get it through the through the school board, and we ended up with the building there, far bigger than the one we were in. And then we could relocate all of our programs in there and then grow our own. Was that a gift? It was a gift, we ended up paying for a lot of stuff. We didn't pay anything for the building, but what we did do is we had to replace furnaces, we had to replace some of the interior fixtures, so there was a fairly significant cost to doing those things. And that's where a lot of our funding went to for the first little while is to try to refurbish that place. And we couldn't add it on to to what we were charging for some of the programs we were doing because they were barely making a goal of it anyway, you know. So we had to fundraise uh most of the money for that, and we did to start at the senior mobility. Senior mobility was a big was a big issue for us because people couldn't afford it. You know, they couldn't afford the cabs. We decided with the help of the Lions Club, they were the first people on board to say, okay, we're putting money into this thing. We're going to help out here, and we're gonna help out on a yearly basis. You guys need to get the car from somewhere. So what we did is we were able to get a car to Royal Ford. We provided us with a vehicle to start with. All of the service clubs put some money in to provide us with the operating, and that service is still going today, and it's well used. Another uh pilot was uh what was then called the parrot aid. We started that uh in conjunction with the department. Tom Suey and I had lots of conversations about this, and he was as much involved in the initial years as he was seeing as I was families that could manage at home in some cases if they had the support. It's kept families together, it's kept families uh in their homes, and that's key to what we wanted to see happen. We built that collectively with the with the department.

Dick DeRyk 19:55

Department of Social Services. There are several programs along those lines. They have to be referred by by what is now the Ministry of Social Services.

Clay Serby 20:05

Yeah.

Dick DeRyk 20:06

People can't self-refer, but they are providing that type of service on behalf of the department.

Clay Serby 20:13

Yeah, and that was the case then too. Yeah. So that hasn't changed.

Dick DeRyk 20:17

Two more programs uh that have now been around for 40 years, started in 86. Counseling for both family violence and sexual assault.

Clay Serby 20:28

I said, you know what, uh, we have a real huge need here uh for these two services. The importance of it it would be for me to be able to uh sort out which individuals and families would be recipients of this service. And it's important for me to have legal representation to do some of that work because some of them actually ended up in courts. I was successful in securing a legal counselor so that when I finished my assessments with people, then I could move it on either to see it through in a uh conciliatory fashion with individuals, or I could refer it on to a legal counselor, trustee services, which are again still being offered, uh were started in 1985. This would have been one of the programs, another program I had the good fortune, of course, of working in the department, and I worked on the child and family service side, Tom worked on the public assistance side, right? And so to be able to provide a service like this, I needed a call his unit to provide the individuals, and Tom wasn't uh at that time anywhere near being that signed.

Dick DeRyk 21:55

Following Clay Serve's departure, the organization entered three. Years of largely maintaining the status quo and continuing the existing programs under the management of Wink Howland, who had been a board member and chair of the board. By then the organization was located at the former Angus Price School. The most notable change was turning over the daycare program to the Yorkton Nursery School Cooperative, which continues to operate in Yorkton in the annex of St. Andrews United Church on Smith Street, downtown. Wink was followed by Tom Steeley in 1995. Tom had spent 18 years as a social worker with the provincial department in Yorkton, then six years as the Western Canada Representative for Big Brothers and Big Sisters Canada, helping member agencies in expanding that organization. Tom oversaw a period of renewed growth, both in programs and physical facilities. Under his watch, Stein acquired through a donation the former Corona Motor Hotel, which is now Stein on Broadway. Tom retired in 2009. He and Wendy, who had a 43-year career as a psychiatric nurse, still live in Yorktown. You arrived in 1995 and you were there for 14 years. What is your most enduring memory of your time at SIN?

Tom Seeley 23:29

Sign was the most amazing job because uh I was surrounded by people who were passionate about what they did there. When I left, there were 19 different programs. And as you probably know, we didn't pay people all that well. They weren't working there for the money. They were working there, they cared about what they did. So to go into a place like that every day, surrounded by people like that, uh to this day, I just marvel at my good fortune at having had that experience for 14 years. What was your first exposure to SINE? We came to Yorkon in 1971, and uh shortly thereafterwards uh our first child came along. I'd heard about Sign a bit then from working at social services, but come about 1975-ish, it would be, we needed uh daycare for our child, and this wonderful woman called Phyllis David, who was starting up as a daycare in the lower level of the Parker Quine building, and our daughter Tracy attended that daycare.

Dick DeRyk 24:39

Before you came to sign, you were working for Big Brothers and Sisters as a Western Canada veteran. Yep. And you had your office at the Parker Cline.

Tom Seeley 24:48

The way that worked out is I had left social services to do this job with Big Brothers and Sisters in Canada where you could do your office in your own home. And that was okay for a year or two, but I really missed being around colleagues and around people because my work was out, way out miles away. So I worked it out that I could rent an office at sign. They were my landlord, actually, for a little while. That was another exposure, but uh really prior to that, let's go back to the daycare. I'll just tell you a bit about the Christmas party that Phyllis had, and there was no board. It was supposed to be a parent-operated board, and there was no board. So there are Phyllis, the way she did things was she had an intermission at the first Christmas concert and said, Well, we're gonna have our meeting now for our daycare, and uh, we need some board members, and somebody punched me in the ribs, and I think my hand moved or something. Says, Oh yeah, Tom, you'll be on. And so then I came on the board of the signed daycare. So again, that would have been in the mid-70s. I became actually the board chair of the daycare, and then they had to have a representative on the sign organization on the sign board. So by default, I ended up being on the sign board. And then I think even one year I was a board chair, if I know I was for a year or two, of the sign organization. But that's kind of the sequence of how I got involved with sign, and it was through the daycare originally. When you became executive director, were you looking for a change? I was getting tired of the travel with the job I was in, but wasn't actively looking until people in the building, as I said, who had an office in there, and people kept coming and saying, Hey Tom, where the executive director position is open, why don't you apply? And it took me a while to think about it, but then I thought, yeah, like I think I should, and I did. An interesting thing about that sign organization, I still brag about it all the time, but the board told me when they hired me, you know, we're in a bit in the doldrums right now, and we think we need to do some new things. So I was under the misapprehension that I'd have to think up new things. Well, that wasn't at all the case, and that's not the way the organization works. The ideas came flowing through the door. People would come in and yak up their ideas and that sort of thing, and every once in a while they had a really good one, and then we'd call a meeting of other people that were interested, and boom, a new program evolved. The ideas came from not from me but from the community, and we just had to be available to respond to it.

Dick DeRyk 27:31

Prior to you, uh Greek Howland was the executive director for I think about four years. Yeah. But it seemed that the whole organization was was fairly dormant at that time.

Tom Seeley 27:41

It was dormant for a variety of reasons, and one was tight government funding. Of course, that's been the case pretty well for the whole life of the organization, but that was a factor, and there were other factors too. But it was got kind of a bit stagnant. Yeah.

Dick DeRyk 27:55

Back then in uh '96, Problem Gambling Council. I mean, this was pre-casinos, pre-online gambling. It obviously was identified as an issue.

Tom Seeley 28:06

That's really interesting. And I all I remember about that was how difficult it was for problem gamblers to come for help. Because it seemed like they had to be like have lost a quarter section of land or lost their house or lost their wife, or like they had to be really crashing and burning before they would ever come in to access services. So it was very challenging for the worker then to to get people in in time before they began in a lot of trouble. Sign women's series. One uh particularly I remember was in February, and I think I had uh gyne psychologists come in. I was we were doing one on menopause, and it was a date in February, and it was the coldest damn night in Saskatchewan, I think. It was like minus, I don't know, 40 or something like that. And we're having this meeting on menopause, and about 15, 10 minutes before there was hardly anybody there. You can't expect people to come out for this. Well, didn't we have a full room of women finally to come out in that coldest night almost in Saskatchewan history on that particular subject? So, anyway, that's one that burned into my memory was that particular one. But they were very well uh received, and then indeed the ideas for them bubbled up from the community.

Dick DeRyk 29:32

There are some pre-employment and employment types of uh programs.

Tom Seeley 29:37

Pre-employment program for single parents. I think one of the best programs we ever ran. Very difficult to deliver because we always had to reapply for the funding every year, and sometimes they'd skip a year. But basically, what we did was we had educational things for single parent women, and we had an on-site child care deal going on there so that their children had a place to be while they were taking their classes, but they also did some cooking in there so we could do some nutritional stuff, work with them. Also model some parenting practices with them as well. We would work with them to get their driver's licenses and certification and various things. It was a great program, and they were very challenged. Every single one of them had either experienced or were still in situations where they were in domestic abusive situations. So I mean, we had to work with that too. Some of the graduates I see around the community today who are doing just great. But we had to reinvent the thing every year because the government wouldn't continuously fund it. So I had to go and basically develop a space that could be certified good enough to have kids and have the classrooms, and I could identify five or six places or seven around town that we had to renovate every time to repeat this program to do it. But it was worth doing because it was so good. But my God, that was a challenge to have to go like we renovated a St. Joe's Brothers quarters. We uh renovated a place on Smith Street there where bonanza used to be. Uh we renovated that. But uh again, uh I I always think of my job as being a talent scout rather than really doing things myself. I always was able to hire people to run that program who could say, here, here's what we need to do, and they take the ball and run with it and get a goal with it. But that was an amazing program. Families and schools together. I would put that right up there in one of the top programs that we did, and it's a national program, so you you take a curriculum, but for about eight weeks, I think it was, this was after school, and there'd be a meal. Each family took turns doing a meal for the whole group. There's another thing, special play, it was called, where one of the parents had to sit with one of the kids, four-year-old or six-year-old, and just engage in play with them. But there are some rules with that. Can't lead, can't lead any play, and you just have to go with the flow with where the child is at. No bossing around or not even suggesting stuff. Just get into their world. And some people could do that really easily, and some had a heck of a time. But it it was a very important lesson for people to learn to engage with their kids in that way. Uh, also with the meals, the children serve the parents. Just as a way of emphasizing that we need to respect our parents, so they brought the food to the parents and they served the parents, and then the kids ate.

Dick DeRyk 32:58

You um were the one who was in charge when you were offered the building that is now signaled Broadway that was in the travel lodge, and before that, the Corona Motor Hotel. Was that a a no-brainer, or was that how did the the organization go about evaluating that?

Tom Seeley 33:20

It was far from a no-brainer. Whatever the opposite of that is, that's what it was. I had had conversations a couple with John Remy and his wife Fanya about I I really didn't know what it was about. They did call me into a meeting in Saskatoon once, and I still couldn't figure out what what they were after. I thought maybe they wanted to donate some money to us or something. But uh later they told me that they were checking our organization out, but more specifically, checking me out. So one day I was going to a meeting at the regional college. I was almost due to go there, and I got a call from Sonia that said, could I come and talk to them? I thought, geez, I got this other meeting, but maybe I'll go and talk to them. So they sat me down in the boardroom down the lower level of the what was the corona there. I said, Tom, Sonia and I are getting on, John says, so we want to divest ourselves from some of our assets. So what would you think if we donated this place to you and actually all of its contents to your organization? And after I scraped myself up off the floor, I said, John, that's very generous, but I work for a board of directors. I can't say yes or no to such a thing. I have to consult with my board and they have to make a decision. We'll need a little time on this. We did take some time. In fact, we took several months to figure out whether to take this gift or not. In the meantime, John Remy had made us sign and made everybody that we talked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. They couldn't talk about it because he was still operating as a hotel. So later I found out that everybody that had signed one of these agreements not to talk didn't talk. And some of them even were pretty sure that they knew somebody else that had signed one, but they still didn't talk about it with each other. So it worked. We uh hired a consultant by Nima Khan Nadia, who was a former colleague of mine, to help us work through the community. And he was the one that went and did these consultations, got these agreements signed just to see if there are ways we can make this thing work or should we take it. So I think it was uh six, eight months later, we went back to John and said, okay, well, we'll do this. And then there were other steps to go, like evaluating how do you value the number that goes on the charitable receipt when it was a hotel and it's going to become something else. So, what's the thing worth? Took people away smarter than me to figure that out. That was an amazing time. Then we had to get rid of a lot of the stuff. So we had a three-day garage sale, and then my head was in a and the our staff said just typical science. Oh, Tom, we can do this. Oh yeah, well, yeah, it's all good. We'll get this done. So they basically ran this three-day garage sale. We needed uh visa capacity. So I go to Earl Fraser at Boston Pizza, and it and oh said, Earl, we're selling all this stuff, and we really got to have a visa capacity. Could we use your his analog visa machine? He said, sure, Tom, you can use it. So this was the piece of the bakery was a good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we got that from Earl. So when people got their bill, it was from Boston Pizza, you know. But anyway, Earl turned us over a check afterwards after it all collected all many thousands of dollars that he turned this over. But it was very helpful, but this shows how helpful the community was. It was a crazy time. Interesting time.

Dick DeRyk 36:59

What was the first reaction of the board? This would have hit them out of the boom.

Tom Seeley 37:04

They were all over the map. One board member left said, This will never work. You're gonna take sign down with this thing. I'm leaving the board, I don't want to be associated with it because it'll go down. Another board member who stayed on many years after very skeptical that would work, but said, Okay, well, we'll give it a try. And the others were kind of well, what the heck? Let's give it a shot. The staff were supportive. Yeah, I don't know if we could have done it if they weren't.

Dick DeRyk 37:36

Well, at the then provincial department of social services, Tom had worked with Clay Serby, then the executive director of SINE, to set up a program called Parent Aid, which Clay talked about earlier. Tom remembers that well and still considers that a program that met a great need and which continues in various forms today.

Tom Seeley 37:59

Clay Serby and I worked this out. I was at social services and he was at uh sign as an executive director. We worked on developing a parent aid program, that is, where uh somebody that's sort of like uh not a counselor or a social worker, but it's sort of like a helpful supportive aunt or something like that could go into homes and help families who are on the verge of having their kids apprehended. Things were a lot simpler in those days, and I always say we kind of worked out the details of that in the back of a napkin, but it was a negotiation between social services and sign to deliver this parent aid program with the objective of keeping kids out of care. And I know from having worked in social assistance at social services, absolute, almost foolproof way to screw up a human being is to put them into foster home drift and social services. So if you can keep people out of that system, that's well worth doing. And that's what that program did then. It's operating today, and literally scores and scores of children have grown up to be adults and better parents. I think that's one of the best things that we did. And again, uh, you know, it was uh it's the people in the ground that do that work that make make it work. You know, Serbi and I, you know, sort of drew it out, but it's the the people that do the actual work there that uh I know when I was there, the parent support work, they were better trained. And I was a social worker at social services. They were way better trained, had way more training than we had, the ones that were going out and apprehending kids.

Dick DeRyk 39:44

In the early years of sign on Broadway, space was rented out for several years to the RCMP, who brought in police and related organizations from far and wide for training. One course was specifically for the Canadian Coast Guard, as Tom recalls. Staff was brought in to train them how to do armed boarding of ships, complete with live gunfire. The crown of his career, Tom says, is training Coast Guard employees from Newfoundland to do armed takeovers of ships on the bald prairies of Saskatchewan. Tom's retirement was followed by another two years of entrenchment of existing programs, with Richard Stavigny as the executive director. The organization did, however, help those who had to evacuate their homes during the flood of 2010 by providing housing at Stein on Broadway, the former hotel.

Dick DeRyk 40:48

Andrew Stedley, who was born and raised in Yorkten and graduated with a social work degree in 2005, had a connection to Stein going back years when he became the executive director, now the CEO, chief executive officer, in 2011. As a toddler, he attended Stein Daycare, where his mother worked back in the 1970s and 80s. When he took the job, he was already very familiar with Stein, having previously worked in health care areas including addictions, mental health, and public health under the Sunrise Health Region, now part of the Saskatchewan Health Authority. Under his watch, the programs offered by Stein have continued to expand to meet the needs of the time. Among the first in 2011 was Youth Life Skills.

Andrew Sedley 41:54

And so we had young people that would come Monday to Friday and take classes. And it's really evolved though during that time to become more of a one-on-one mentorship. It's now located at Signon Broadway. A lot of our uh programming that we do, it's going into the schools, into the library, and doing some one-on-one mentorship and teaching and utilizing the 40 developmental assets. Uh, the developmental assets come from Search Institute, which uh is based in Minneapolis, and uh they talk about 40 skills that young people need to be successful. And so uh we started to implement the 40 developmental assets into our work with life skills, and it's continued to grow and is still uh being operated 14, 15 years later now. You know, we will offer services up to about age 21, but majority of our our uh young people that do attend programming are anywhere between that 12 to 18 uh age group.

Dick DeRyk 42:50

In uh 2012, sign reopened the early learning center, the daycare.

Andrew Sedley 42:57

You know, I think back to that time and 2012 is when we opened it, but uh the year previous, 2011, our community kind of seen a big growth in people moving to Yorktoon. In my community meetings, one thing uh I kept hearing over and over again was a need for uh more childcare spaces so that parents can go into work. And so off the start, my focus was on developing the daycare that parents could get to work and kids can go to somewhere that's you know a healthy place for them. Eyes became wide open when I learned from a lot of the daycare teachers about what the value of good early childhood program uh such as an early learning center daycare can provide to our young people. I look at our daycare and I see you know we we um ensure that kids are learning through play and exploration, having fun, getting messy. We see also in our community a need for more childcare spaces. It's not just the Yorkton issue, it's provincial and national. The next year you uh expanded the before and

Dick DeRyk 44:00

For school program, which also relates to young kids. It was operating since 2008 in uh MC Knoll St. Michael's in Yorkdale, and then I think in 2013 it expanded to St. Paul's.

Andrew Sedley 44:14

It provides that healthy, safe environment for young people while parents are at work. You know, we've seen the value that it brought to the parents and the families that attended MC Noel St. Michael's and Yorkdale and had a conversation uh with the principal at at St. Paul's. And we sat down and said, okay, how do we make this happen? 12 years now that that's been up and running. And we look at it other schools and have conversations based on needs. Something we always kind of keep our finger out of the pulse on. Is there other tools that could potentially use these supports and then work with the schools on there? None of these before and after school programs can be successful without good partnerships with the schools. And we have some amazing partnerships where they see the value of having us in there working with the kids. We see the value of working with the kids, the schools, the parents. And so it's worked really well. And it seems to uh be be one of our programs that continually grows and grows and grows each year. Some of the biggest challenges is just space, because as we've seen our school populations grow, that also means less space available uh within the schools. So we can only grow as the space is available. But uh uh we've been very innovative with our school partners and been able to provide uh what I think are some really great programming for our uh kids, uh kindergarten to grade six uh in some of our schools here in Yorkton.

Dick DeRyk 45:34

Triple P got started in 2014-2015. That is a program that is uh international that sign picked up and uh and has been running now for a decade.

Andrew Sedley 45:46

In that 10 years, over 1,900 families have attended a triple P program that we've offered uh here in Yorkton, some of our surrounding rural communities, all the way out to Fort Quappel. And uh talking to some of the provincial folks, they still see this sign triple P program as kind of the leader provincially being innovative and growing. Uh, what we started out with was an idea that was brought forward from the Ministry of Social Services to us and said, you know, is this something that you think you could pilot for the province? And so Yorkton, Regina, and Sandy Bay, and Yorkton being sign uh was chosen as the three pilot sites. One of the dignitaries from Triple P Canada did too, you know, not only a provincial leader, but a national leader. And so really proud of the work that that that program's done. And and what makes it so successful is it's for everybody. It's not just for parents working with social services or anything like that. It's open to everyone and anyone. Anyone that just wants to have more strategies to be able to help out assist uh in their parenting. One of the first groups we held was uh a brand new mom, uh single mom, uh, 18 years old, sitting beside a doctor and his wife, both of them just wanting to become the best possible parents they could be. Started as a pilot, it's now across the province. It's very similar to a lot of programs in the uh you know 70s and 80s that Sign kind of pioneered and that have kind of spread throughout. Uh, this is another one I'm definitely proud to say that Sign was a part of that spread out now across the province as well.

Dick DeRyk 47:27

And another anniversary uh this year was uh the Camsack Family Resource Center, which was the first program of Sign that that moved into Camsack, I believe.

Andrew Sedley 47:39

All these 10-year anniversaries. I've ate a lot of cake. The Camsack Family Resource Center, healthy, safe environment for parents to gather with their children, learn about early childhood development, and do it similar to how we've been doing it in Yorkton with the uh Family Resource Center here. Although it was our first into Camsack, uh, we've seen the value that it brought to that community and which has kind of really kept our mind looking at, okay, what else can we provide to that community and other communities uh moving forward in the future, too? Because uh we've seen the success of some of these programs like the Camsack Family Resource Center, and we know, hey, there's opportunities that we can potentially replicate that in some of our other communities as well.

Dick DeRyk 48:20

You have uh the last 10 years, starting with Camsack, but even more recently, have expanded into a number of other communities. Rapid Access is now in Melville and Estrahazy, it's in Camsack. Triple P has operated programs in Fort Capel and as well as Muslim and Whitewood. Is that part of the mission of sign to move beyond the borders of the city?

Andrew Sedley 48:47

It's important that we do reach out to a lot of our neighboring communities. And, you know, years ago, a lot of our focus was on Yorkton, but we are noticing that we have a lot of those needs in a lot of other communities within our service area. And so for the longest time, what we would do is we would travel out to various communities, and which we still do, but we decided, you know, let's start looking at having some satellite offices and becoming part of the community. It's uh accepted by those communities. I had an amazing conversation with the mayor of CamSAC, and she was so happy to see that we had a program that was based right in CamSAC that was a part of the community uh that went beyond just kind of traveling once a week to the community or or something like that. Uh, one thing we've really noticed is transportation's an issue. And so if people don't have transportation, they may not be able to get the supports that could really benefit them as an individual, as a family. And uh so by moving our services and becoming a part of the community in some of these rural communities, we're seeing value in that. And we're seeing a lot of successes. And so looking at expansion, there are always those those thoughts and ideas is how do we integrate this into other communities uh throughout our service area too? Melville, another example, opening up the uh rapid access counseling, instead of again traveling there, it's having an office right in Melville so we can meet individuals where they're at, being able to provide those timely and much needed services when they need it too. So that's something that's becoming more and more a focus of us. I think of Sign and I think of over the years of developed programs. It's always been based on the community needs. And each community is unique in some of their needs, and so that may be a basis for us to really start looking at um providing more of those uh services based in that community and being a part of that community.

Dick DeRyk 50:43

In 2018, Sign and others in the province, through a provincial organization, became involved in walk-in counseling, which has really grown and changed and expanded not only in Yorkton, but in in the area and throughout the province. And it all started with that fairly basic walk-in counseling program.

Andrew Sedley 51:07

This was another program that I think Science can be very proud of that they pioneered and piloted, and it all started. One of our staff, Carmen Pierce, was doing her masters for her social work. And we were talking about this an opportunity to develop some sort of a counseling program that was kind of based off of kind of the walk-in clinic. So the walk-in clinics back then had been around for a number of years, and you know, you gr you didn't feel good, so you went into the walk-in clinic, you grabbed a number, you had a doctor look at you, in, out, done, perfect. What about doing something like that with counseling? And so she was doing her practicum, and we partnered with Family Service Regina because they had a master's level social worker as well to oversee her. And uh, and then so family service regina and sign, then developed what we called at the time walk-in counseling. Want to talk to somebody, come in, grab a number, and uh a counselor will see you that day. And so we ran the program for I think it was two, three months. Evaluation time came and we had a lot of people access the service. So we thought, well, two to three months really isn't a lot of time to get a lot of good stats to then take it to government. And so started searching around and found some funding. Was able to then run it for another year. So during that year, we ran the program. I got two of our family service part Saskatchewan partners as well to run a similar program. So Family Service Regina was doing something like that already, too. So we kept our stats, Regina kept theirs, and we also got Melford involved for that year. We all collected the same types of stats, um, looking at successful outcomes, that sort of thing, and then had the opportunity to present it to government. And it really started with a sit-down coffee with our NLA at the time, talking just a little bit about this this new what we called an innovative program of providing counseling supports when people need it most, you know, and not waiting until things get worse and crises increase and people are going to emergency rooms because we know those visits cost a lot of money. And so he took it forward for us. And remember, we got a phone call saying uh the Ministry of Health would like to sit down with you and and look at developing a program that could be done provincially. And so folks from Regina and myself went down to to the legislature and uh sat down with the minister at the time, and then also sat with the Ministry of Health folks and and came up with this program and and we ran it through Family Service Saskatchewan, which is 12 member agencies, uh sign being one of them, and we're able to provide that service throughout the province. We uh looked at trying to make it as accessible as possible. So we changed it from walking counseling to rapid access counseling and really wanting it to um be available to people wherever they were when they needed it. So we ran it for a year and a half or so on our own. And then once we brought everyone together for it, uh COVID hit. And so then that kind of pushed us into okay, well, how do we offer this service? And we thought, well, let's be innovative. And that's when we first started going into using technology. So we started doing virtual appointments off the start. And uh for me and for Sign in the past, we we weren't really doing a lot of technology. In fact, we uh you know didn't really dip our toes into any kind of video conferencing or anything like that until right around 2020. So we decided, okay, we're gonna go do that provincially. And we also said, but we're not only gonna just do that, we're gonna have people be able to go online and pick uh the date they want to meet with a counselor, pick who they want to see as a counselor. So when you go onto counseling connect now, you can actually see who the counselors are that are available, what their backgrounds are, male, female, whatever it may be, sort of thing, uh, and try to make it as user-friendly as possible. We're now uh throughout the province, and uh it uh is just gaining so much steam. Started out as just kind of a general basic counseling. We now have specialized services for children and youth. Uh, there's also provincial services for postventions for families that have been affected by suicide, and we're continuing to talk with uh the provincial government um new expansions in other areas of the province uh that can also use these supports too. So proud to say that sign was uh was a part of uh the beginning of this one as well to uh to be something that's uh much needed throughout our province. So we started out Yorkon only and and we were just at our sign on Broadway building, and then we uh expanded to include a day at the library, the public library. I'd seen some really good synergy there, and then through conversations and some additional funds and that sort of thing, able to expand to Camsack, Melville, Esther, Hazy, Yorkton. We're really starting to see where individuals talk about mental health and see it just like on par with physical health. And we're gonna see more and more of this. I truly believe moving forward is critical investments in mental health.

Dick DeRyk 56:27

Sign is now several dozen programs in Yorkton and and area communities. Since you took over as the executive director and now you're the CEO, change in title. The budget has more than doubled from about three million dollars a year to seven. That is a pretty significant growth for any organization or or any business. Where does it go from here? Are we missing programs that uh that you're looking at? What's the longer-term strategy?

Andrew Sedley 56:59

There's many needs in our community that are changing. We're gonna have to still focus on uh providing some new programming, new support. Uh when I look at our community now, from when I started 14 and a half, 15 years ago, we've seen uh huge changes in what's some people are are really struggling with, whether it's mental health, addictions, those that are house insecure, those that may be going hungry. Uh we're seeing more and more needs and a lot more people in crisis. Individuals that uh may not be able to afford rent, afford groceries, and so really looking at how do we provide support to those individuals that are really struggling, but how do we also become an active partner with our provincial government, with our federal government to ensure that we can be a part of a solution as well. We'll provide the supports as we can, but we also know that uh a lot of work has to be done and it can't be done on its own, whether it's just from a government level or anything else. It's bringing government and CBOs uh together to look at some of those solutions and service users as well. And so when I look uh to the future and see where we still need to go, there's many different issues that our folks are now experiencing and will continue to experience and and more that'll be on its way. But uh one thing Sign's always been uh from the very beginning days of when Elton Davidge was here was Sign was always having its finger of the pulse of the community. So what are those needs? What are some of the solutions and who needs to be a part of those solutions? And that's something that hasn't changed throughout all of the different executive directors, being able to have involvement in the community where you have a sense of what's happening, how do we how do we look at solutions? And they don't all have to be signed solutions. Maybe we know a partner that could do a better job because they're based in that kind of sector. Working with them, supporting them, assisting them to provide those best possible supports. Because at the end of the day, we all live in the community and we all want to be a part of that success, but it may not have to always be a sign program. Sign wants to be a leader in our community. We want to ensure that we have a voice at the table. If it's something that we can take the lead on, wonderful. Uh, but if it's something that we think that, hey, there's another agency that can do a good job, a better job, it's right in their wheelhouse. We're gonna work with that agency to ensure that they're able to provide those best possible supports as well. We're gonna continue to see needs, constantly keeping our finger on the pulse of the community to meet those needs.

Dick DeRyk 59:40

Uh a lot more information about sign is available on our website, signyorkton.ta, as well as the website of the Yorkton Early Years Family Resource Center, SignYEYFRC.ta. We are also on social media, Instagram and Facebook, where you will find information about current events and activities, and also on YouTube, where there are numerous videos and previous podcasts about sign. If you have questions or need assistance that sign can provide, do not hesitate to get in touch.