Collective Voice

Disability Service Sector Advocacy Update

What’s next for the Human Resources Advocacy Strategy?

In January’s issue of The Table, we stated that SARC would be engaging our Members in ‘next steps’ discussions at April’s regional Member Update meetings. The release of the Provincial Budget in March brings the previous cycle of advocacy to a close and prompts the discussion of whether success was achieved and what, if anything, should be done next to advocate for improved funding in the Disability Service sector. Most notable to our advocacy strategy in the 2023-2024 budget was the announcement of an additional $7.7 million for service providers supporting people experiencing disability (we have sought confirmation as to percentage impact to organizations’ budgets, but we have not yet received it).

At the April meetings, we asked Members to tell us how they felt about the Provincial Budget, give us a sense of the current state of their workforce, and share their thoughts on what should come next for the sector’s advocacy strategy. All SARC Members will receive consolidated notes from all four meetings, but here is a summary of what we heard from Members there:

Budget Reaction/State of Workforce

• Organizations are appreciative of any increase, but this was not enough, particularly considering the wage gap and total compensation inequities that already exist between our sector and Health (the Disability Service sector’s greatest workforce competitor) and the rate of inflation/cost of living.

• The increase does not address true costs for employee benefits packages or the rising costs for mandatory employer related costs (ex. WCB).

• The Disability Service sector and the people supported continue to be undervalued.

• Employees are working multiple jobs, often completing back-to-back shifts, to make ends meet, which is giving rise to safety risks (ex. fatigue, medication errors, etc.).

• Many organizations reported that they have been forced to lower their hiring standards, just to ensure shifts are filled, which places people being supported at great risk.

• The complexity of the work continues to increase. Organizations are supporting more and more people with complex behavioural, physical, and mental health needs as well as addictions. Ancillary health, harm reduction, community, and other support services are often unavailable to people supported in the Disability Service sector.

• An unstable and unhealthy workforce has a direct negative impact on quality of service, community inclusion, and person-centredness.

• Many CBOs reported seeing a significant rise in crisis and harmful behaviours in the people they support due to the effects of workforce instability.

• Turnover remains high for most organizations; employees are leaving after receiving training.

• Vacancies are on the rise and remaining vacant for longer.

• Overtime costs required in order to cover vacant shifts are considerably higher than past years.

• More and more middle and senior leaders are off on stress/medical leaves or leaving for higher paying/less stressful jobs.

• The work the sector does is an essential service, yet the funding philosophy and funding structure doesn’t reflect the critical and complex nature of the work.

Next Steps in Advocacy Strategy

• The strategy has been pretty ‘safe’ up to this point, but we’re not getting the results needed.

• There are varying levels of comfort when it comes to engaging people supported, their families, and employees, but we are seeing more and more employees, people being supported, families, and friends uniting and standing up to say, “People experiencing disabilities deserve better.” The sector needs their involvement to amplify the messages.

• As a Membership, organizations need to continue to care about their peer organizations, network more on the advocacy front, and support each other to take action. We need to demand that all people experiencing disability, regardless of the community they live in, are supported by skilled, qualified, person-centred professionals and that the CBOs that employ them have the capacity to deliver the highest quality services and meet the needs of all people.

SARC then met with the Advocacy Committee (comprised of SARC Members and Board Directors) on May 2 to share this feedback and begin to discuss next steps. These discussions will inform the next strategy and related supporting materials for Members moving forward. Stay tuned for the release of this year’s Member Advocacy Toolkit in July.

That same day, SARC and the Advocacy Committee hosted an MLA Reception at the Legislative Building. SARC has been on the waitlist for this opportunity for over a year, which is set up as a come and go opportunity for MLAs either in between their committee meetings or at the end of their day. With MLAs already in the building, the event’s convenient format is intended to draw a larger crowd versus holding something off-site. One drawback to this format, however, is the limited room capacity; therefore, SARC was not able to open up this event to all SARC Members as we’ve done with past MLA events.

The premise of the MLA Reception was to have MLAs drawn to six large pictures on display throughout the room, depicting the value of services that SARC Members provide, the impact on people experiencing disability and communities, and the challenges that SARC Members are facing with employee recruitment and retention. These types of events are not meant for ‘hard hitting’ lobbying; rather, they provide opportunity for raising the profile of the sector and awareness of funding realities.

We were very pleased to have 34 MLAs join us for the event, and we would like to extend a big thank you to the Advocacy Committee representatives who were able to join us that day for the wonderful job they did engaging them and increasing awareness. We are working on plans to follow up with those attending MLAs and were happy with the overall timing of the event leading into Disability Service Professionals Week, May 22-26, 2023 and our next cycle of Member advocacy activities beginning through the summer.

Meanwhile, our discussions within the Ministry of Social Services continue. SARC met with Joel Kilbride, the new Assistant Deputy Minister for Disability Programs, on May 11 to bring him up to speed on the current landscape of the Disability Service sector and our Members’ urgent funding needs. Joel has been with the Ministry’s Child & Family Programs division for several years, but prior to that he was a Director within Disability Programs, so he already has good familiarity with the sector and we are looking forward to working with him again.

Other Advocacy Priorities

While funding for employee compensation and benefits continues to be a high priority for the sector, it is not the only area of advocacy that SARC is working on. SARC’s Advocacy and Lobbying Framework, which was established from the survey feedback from our Members in spring 2021, identifies three other priorities alongside Compensation. At our regional Member Update meetings, we provided updates on these as well.

Non-Salary Funding Standards:

As we continue to hear from our Members that many areas of their non-salary operating budget are not funded adequately, we have been discussing various ways to clearly show these deficits to government. SARC had developed an Excel spreadsheet tool in an attempt to compare actual costs to funding provided for each area of the CLSD Funding Standards Guide. Representatives from the Advocacy Committee volunteered to test the tool for us in terms of how easy it would be to supply the required information. Initially, the plan was to issue this tool to Members in May.

After receiving the data from the test group, SARC reviewed all comments, suggestions, and results to determine whether the tool had adequately gathered the information needed. This testing phase showed the complexities and various ways that organizations may not be able to supply the precise information requested. Additionally, we recognized the amount of time and effort it would take for organizations to complete and submit this tool to SARC, particularly at a time of year when organizations are quite busy with responsibilities related to their year-end, audit, and AGM.

As such, the Advocacy Committee plans to reconvene to discuss alternate methods of obtaining Member data on non-salary funding, and we will continue to advocate for an independent review regarding the adequacy of current levels of funding.

Disability Service Sector Promotion:

SARC has continued working on the development of a public relations campaign to profile the value and importance of the Disability Service sector. In the last issue of The Table, we shared that we were awaiting our first look at possible creative materials developed by our contracted firm, Brown Communications. Upon receiving those creative concepts, we sought feedback from the Advocacy Committee while Brown Communications undertook market testing with a test group of 400 Saskatchewan residents. Through this, we were looking for feedback on what people liked, what they didn’t like, and what their key takeaways were from our messaging. Based on all of this feedback, we finalized the concept, and Brown Communications is currently supplying creative to media outlets as per our media plan.

The campaign, called “Start With Hello”, is set to launch May 22. As the campaign progresses, you will see some advertising that is more general in nature as to the value of the Disability Service sector and then others with more targeted messaging to encourage people to consider a career in the sector.

While we’ll certainly have a good amount of paid media running throughout the life of the campaign (through to August 2024), we can also amplify our message organically with the help of our Members – examples include liking and sharing SARC’s social media posts as well as incorporating creative material from the campaign on your website or other promotional materials. The more public presence our messaging has the stronger the impact will be in terms of raising awareness about the essential nature of the Disability Service sector. We will have a webpage dedicated to housing creative material that our Members can use, so stay tuned for more details.

Educational Standards for the Disability Service Sector: Initiatives pertaining to compensation, non-salary funding standards, and sector promotion are currently underway, whereas work to establish educational standards for the sector are a bit further out on the horizon. This initiative is important, however, as our sector continues to come up against the fact that there are set educational standards for the Continuing Care Assistant position within the Health sector, which we are comparing our sector’s Direct Support Professional position to. While we know the Health sector has relaxed their pre-qualification requirements in light of their own challenges with recruitment (providing opportunities to ‘earn as you learn’), the fact remains that there is a stated standard that does not exist for the Disability Service sector.

The Advocacy and Lobbying Framework set out the following goals:

• By April 1, 2025, the Disability Service sector has come to a general agreement around minimum educational standards for CBOs’ core positions funded by the Ministry of Social Services (including grandfathering considerations).

• By April 1, 2027, educational standards are formally defined within job descriptions, collective agreements, quality assurance and/or Saskatchewan Basic Standards documents, Agreements for Service with the Ministry of Social Services, etc., and that the Ministry’s salary funding standards reflect the educational standards.

We plan to begin discussions with the SARC Membership on educational standards in 2024.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Amy McNeil, Executive Director, at (306) 933-0616, ext. 229 or amcneil@sarcan.sk.ca, or Melanie Weiss, Director of Member Services/AED, at (306) 933-0616, ext. 245 or mweiss@sarcan.sk.ca.