Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul Community Impact Funded Initiatives

The funded initiatives address gaps in community infrastructure that make it difficult to access and navigate existing programs, services, and supports.

Community Focused

Building resiliency in our community to achieve lasting impact

Funding from the Sisters Impact Fund has supported innovation by bringing together interested parties committed to preventing and mitigating ACEs and/or fostering connection and belonging in older adults through building resiliency in in our community to achieve lasting impact.

Addressing gaps in Community Infrastructure

The funded initiatives address gaps in community infrastructure that make it difficult to access and navigate existing programs, services, and supports. Applications were expected to demonstrate a commitment to a consultative, collaborative, and inclusive process from program planning through to implementation and evaluation. They aim to achieve collective transformation by engaging diverse individuals and sectors for maximum community impact and are developed in the spirit of reconciliation

Through a collaborative approach, initiatives address the need for improved interactions with and between agencies and sectors. Preference was given to proposals that:

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Improve access, navigability, and equity in program and service delivery

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Engage multiple partners with shared goals for lasting improvements to local systems and ongoing collaboration

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Demonstrate significant reach in terms of the number of individuals engaged and level of impact

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Identify systemic barriers and forms of discrimination in current practices and use this knowledge to guide proposal planning


Past Impact

Explore Past Grants

Collaborative Care Initiative

This initiative aims to create a collaborative approach to supporting families to build on their strengths and foster protective factors, improving educational and health outcomes for students experiencing significant, complex and ongoing behavioural and social-emotional challenges at school. Plans of care for students and their families will include clinical interventions, social prescribing strategies and educational support, with follow-up wrap around case conferences, support and monitoring by both educational and medical partners. 

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The Exercise, Education, and Social Time initiative is a rural health promotion project, leveraging partnerships across the health and social service sectors, that will deliver two evidence based wellness programs to older adults in underserved rural communities in the KFL&A region. These programs are designed to improve balance, mobility, strength, and bone health, while reducing falls, fractures, and the impacts of chronic disease. Sessions offer facilitated social opportunities alongside education and referrals to health and community services that combat isolation and support well-being.

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Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) in Kingston

HIPPY is an evidenced-based home visiting program that supports parents and young children with school readiness and social integration. The program is designed for the specific needs and cultural contexts of immigrant/refugee, low income and Indigenous families. Through a peer-support model, HIPPY strengthens families and communities by breaking isolation, helping to support parents as their child’s first teacher, and by bringing support into the home for families who cannot or do not access existing programs and services. 

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This initiative is focused on reducing social isolation and fostering belonging among older adults by providing accessible, low barrier-to-entry social connection options via Talking Cafes, generating touchstone moments for social connection as well as knowledge mobilization and referrals for other community services and resources. The goal is to act locally to improve health and wellbeing by increasing social connectedness, developing a replicable model that others can adopt and expand.

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I-CREAte is a community-based participatory action research initiative that conducts meaningful and action oriented research to improve the health and well-being of children, families, and communities in Kingston and the surrounding region. The funding will support I-CREAte to collaborate with the Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resilience Coalition of KFL&A (ARC) to expand capacity for multidisciplinary community based research supporting children and families experiencing ACEs within KFL&A, including building a hub for research and evaluation for ARC and partner organizations’ projects.

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Created in consultation with the community it would serve, A Great Start for Families Kahwà:tsire Ronwatiyenawá:se Centre opened its doors in October, 2022. Offering families better service coordination and navigation has created a ‘one door knock’ for services, including childcare, and helps reduce barriers to accessing services, ultimately preventing escalation of need. This funding builds on this strong foundation, helping to introduce more early relational programming, expanding the hub model to reach more families, and ultimately developing a collaborative, efficient system with a focus on primary prevention, early intervention and support.

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In October of 2023 Kingston Community Health Centres, Teach Resilience and the ACEs & Resilience Coalition of KFL&A (ARC) came together to host the KFL&A Resilience Symposium: Navigating Adversity Through the Power of Community. Over 3 days, over 450 people engaged in 10 events at 6 locations, bringing together community champions, educators, decision makers, and those interested in building a more resilient KFL&A to chart a course of systemic community change.

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The goal of “Becoming Trauma Responsive,” was to position Pathways Kingston, as well as the KFL&A in general, as leaders in providing coordinated trauma responsive care to children and youth. With the understanding that there were no local resources or trainings available to youth-serving organizations in KFL&A, the Trauma-Responsive Team Leads, or “TRTLs”, came together to build local capacity for low cost, local, trauma-responsive coaching. Through this grant, the TRTLs earned trauma-responsive trainer certification from the Community Resilience Initiative (CRI). The TRTLs then trained over 2000 local participants in CRI’s certificate courses, which offer foundational background information on ACEs and brain science, as well as practical strategies for approaching a variety of situations with children and youth in a trauma-responsive way. 

Elizabeth Nelson

Project Manager


mail oacb@cfka.org

phone 613.546.9696, ext 108

Land Acknowledgment

The Community Foundation for Kingston & Area is situated on Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat territory. We acknowledge the significance of this land and all that is within it for the Indigenous Peoples who lived and continue to live here and who are sustained by this land.

It is our understanding that this territory is part of the Dish with One Spoon Treaty between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee to share and protect this land. In the spirit of peace, friendship and respect, all subsequent Indigenous Nations and newcomers were invited into this living treaty to care for this land and its resources.

We affirm our commitment to continuously listen, learn, and honour Indigenous histories and perspectives as we work towards building a more resilient and welcoming community. We affirm our commitment to be a space for reconciliation in action.