Foundry Expansion – Convening

If your community has a population/ catchment size, as written in your EOI, of under 15,000, Foundry considers your community to be rural/remote. All communities with population/ catchment sizes 15,000 and above will be considered a full fidelity centre.  This impacts the eligible funding envelope as referenced in the written submission template.

Please find list below:

• Rural/Remote (Population under 15,000)
  • Hope
  • Burns Lake
  • Port Hardy & Mount Waddington
  • Fort St. James
• Urban (Population of 15,000+)                                                                       
  • Comox Valley
  • Cowichan Valley
  • Squamish
  • Sunshine Coast
  • Kamloops
  • Tri-Cities
  • Burnaby
  • Powell River
  • North Okanagan – Vernon
  • Williams Lake
  • Cranbrook & Kimberley
  • North Surrey
  • Langley
  • Cloverdale
  • Fort St. John

Yes please merge into one PDF. There are many free PDF merge tools on the Internet that you can find through searching “Free PDF Merger” on Google. We appreciate this!

There are two key activities when attendance is required:

Activity & Attendee:

• Interview: Executive Director of Lead Agency & Board Chair (or equivalent)
• In-person (Mar 2-3): Executive Director of Lead Agency and either Operations Manager (or equivalent) or Leader of a Partnering Agency

The interviews will be with your organization’s Executive Director and Board Chair, or senior administration equivalent. The two-day Convening Session in March will require the attendance of your Executive Director and the Operations Leader (or equivalent) for your organization. If it is not possible to bring your organization’s Operations Leader, or your organization does not have one, your second person could be the Leader of a key partnering agency. The two-day Convening Session will be focused on operational details, which is why we have identified these roles as the best to attend. Your Board Chair is not required or recommended to be at the Convening Session.

There is information on Travel and Accommodation in the Convening Information Package for your reference. You will be required to book all travel (please take note of maximum amounts for flights and other forms of travel as outlined in the information package). We encourage you to book this as soon as possible to ensure costs are minimized. We will reimburse you for all travel related costs. Should your flights or travel expenses exceed our set maximum amount, please be in touch with us as soon as possible as we will need to approve this. Please plan to arrive Sunday night and leave Tuesday evening (convening will end by 4pm).

When organizations partner at a Foundry centre there is a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the organizations. Foundry has MOU templates and is happy to support with this piece. The MOU will outline what co-locating will look like and how each partnering agency will contribute. Your lead agency can seek out legal advice in your community. Foundry does not financially support this nor have we found this to be an issue with other centres.

The Lead Agency will have insurance for their Foundry space. Their organization will have WorkSafe for their own employees while partners will have their own WorkSafe coverage for their employees, which will apply to those who are working within a Foundry centre. Your lead agency can seek out legal advice in your community. Foundry does not financially support this nor have we found this to be an issue with other centres or partners.

The information you have been given in the Information Package regarding the Service Model Overview is all that is needed for Convening. The five other chapters are shared with Lead Agencies later in the Foundry centre development process.

Toolbox is a tablet-based electronic system developed to improve the delivery of integrated care at Foundry centres as well as support evaluation, quality improvement and research activities. The goal of Toolbox is to decrease the amount of paperwork required from youth and families. Toolbox has a minimum data set that we collect on all young people who enter Foundry services. It was implemented so that it eliminates the challenge of pulling data from different Electronic Medical Records. The minimum data set includes evidence-based screening tools and ideally replaces pre-existing forms already in use in your organization.

Toolbox minimizes the duplication by allowing service providers to access data on the young person, which decreases the amount of repeated history taking for both the youth and the service provider and allows for additional provider output.  The goal of Toolbox is to give each Foundry centre as much information as possible, while minimizing paperwork.

We are currently in the process of reviewing our privacy compliance processes and documents to ensure that they respect the First Nations principles of OCAP®, a set of standards that establish how First Nations data should be collected, protected, used, or shared.  In the meantime, we recommend using publicly accessible data when when responding to questions asked in the Convening written submission.

When we ask about communications tactics, we are requesting for you to detail the strategies that your organization uses to communicate with different audiences in your community like youth, families, service providers and community partners e.g. social media use, newsletters, your website, or anything also that is working for those different audiences.

When it comes to Foundry centre funding, while GP sessions can be included, we have found that this is less than ideal due to their cost. We suggest considering a Nurse Practitioner. Currently, Foundry is working with government to develop a funding model for primary care which includes funding for GPs and nurse practitioners. We suggest continuing to work on a relationship with your local health authority and Division of Family Practice for their in-kind support when it comes to funding primary care. Foundry is a component of the Primary Care Network which can trigger a conversation with your local Division of Family Practice.

There is precedent for Lead Agencies to sub-contract if partnership attempts for existing services has been exhausted or there simply is a gap in service provision. Administrative costs cannot be included for this.

Foundry centres bring together existing resources in their communities, identify remaining gaps, and use new annual operating funding from the Government of BC to address those gaps. In-kind resources include existing staffing and resources committed by the lead agency and their partners in order to establish the Foundry service model.

In-kind resources typically include clinical staff providing counselling, mental health and substance use service, peer support, primary care or other social service supports. This can also include administrative supports. Acceptable non-staffing contributions include but are not limited to: funding, capital costs, rent or lease costs, staffing resources, transportation, etc.

Examples from Foundry centres includes the following in-kind resources:

• From Health Authorities:
  • Primary care sessional funding for General Practitioners; salaried Nurse Practitioners, Mental Health and Substance Use Counselling staff
• From the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD):
  • Salaried Child and Youth Mental Health Clinicians, Adult Youth Agreement Worker, Services to Adults with Developmental Disabilities (STADD) Navigator
• From the Lead Agency:
  • Salaried Counsellors, centre leadership and coordination, Youth Engagement and Youth Programming staff, space or property already owned or leased
• From School Districts, Local Partner Non-profits and/or Government Agencies not listed above:
  • Salaried Counselling staff, programming such as group wellness activities, cultural service staff such as Indigenous Youth Navigators, vocational or employment supports, housing supports, sublease contributions
• From the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction (MSDPR):
  • Salaried Income Assistance Worker or Housing worker, subsidies

“Net new” services refers services that do not exist at this moment. “Net new” are resources that are NOT provided “in kind”. Foundry funding is intended to fill service gaps in the Foundry service model, for example peer support, substance use services, or mental health clinicians. Our funding is not intended to be allocated to services that are already funded and operating in the community, nor to potential “in kind” services. Our funding is not used fill an operational deficit for the lead agency or partners.

We will be providing a document to your lead agency by the end of the week that will outline an overview of Foundry and information about expansion which you can use in your community engagements.

At this time, a Lead Agency that is not under contract to deliver Foundry, cannot use the Foundry branding or press package as these tools are copyright and limited to lead agencies in the Foundry Network.

For communication purposes, your agency can:

• encourage folks to sign up for our newsletter
• communicate about your involvement in the Convening Phase as a prospective Foundry lead agency in community engagements you are hosting
• share any information on the Foundry website or any other public facing Foundry documents, including the resources available for download at: http://foundrybc.ca/help-promote-foundry/

Toolbox is separate from the Electronic Medical Records. Foundry does not provide an EMR system, but we will provide recommendations on EMR systems. We will support you with this piece and we understand that record sharing and communications between agencies can be challenging.

Toolbox collects most data required for reporting. Foundry covers the costs of Toolbox.

We are referring to the staff person who provides the leadership for how programs are run and who will understand how the centre will operate. They should also have an understanding of their staff’s capacity for the onboarding phase. In most of our centres, there is the lead agency’s Executive Director as well as an operations lead for the centre.

Toolbox is not a chart. It’s a data collection platform. Toolbox can be accessed online, for Health Survey and Minimum Data Set access. It does not integrate with EMRs, but is not considered double-charting.

What we are asking for is the in-kind contribution for youth aged 12-24. Foundry is an identifiable space created for young people. If a young person is a parent, then they can be in the space with their children. In-kind contributions not addressing this population would be considered out of scope for the in-kind contribution.

This is correct.

There has been precedent set for both.

Yes, within market pricing and with consideration to the overall budget and fidelity to the minimum standards of the Foundry service model.

We understand that “evidence-based” practice is not always aligned with cultural safety and humility. We are on a learning journey that includes hearing from diverse young people and their families, to understand how to improve the quality of our service so that they are ultimately delivered safely. Cultural safety and humility is a strategic imperative for Foundry this year and we will be releasing a standard by the spring. Existing Foundry centres do currently offer cultural services and holistic, non-clinical wellness activities.

Foundry maintains meaningful youth and family engagement on the Provincial level as well as locally, at Foundry centres in a number of different ways. Provincially, Foundry central office (FCO) has folks on the team with lived and living experience supporting engagement for both youth & families. We have established provincial engagement working groups for youth, family and centre engagement staff/leads. Locally, each centre has their local YAC & FACs, with their specific involvement differing depending on their local interests and their centre’s ability to support. More information about youth and family engagement can be found in the EOI Submission Guide, Foundry Expansion One-Pager and the ‘youth & family engagement’ section of Foundry’s Developmental Evaluation. In addition, there will be an opportunity to inquire further about engagement and many other topics at the in-person convening in March.

We welcome letters of support that show the breadth of support and excitement for Foundry in your community, whether those letters are from partners who would contribute resources to your centre, or networks and agencies that may support you in other ways.

The purpose of the interview is for our evaluation panel members to meet with your ED and Board Chair (or equivalent) and the discussion will focus primarily on governance and leadership. We encourage you to include only your ED and Board Chair (or equivalent) unless there is an important reason why you may need to include another person with governance or leadership oversight or responsibilities.

To clarify, the letters that Foundry central office will be requesting are from MCFD and the Health Authorities only (NOT school districts or other community partners. Your agency will need to request letter of of support from School Districts and other community partners). For MCFD and the Health Authorities, we will be distributing our request for letters of intent to partner via our provincial contacts, who will determine who best to send it to. We anticipate this will generally be the ED of MHSU in Health Authorities and the EDs of Service in MCFD, though this is likely to vary depending on the region and structure.

While it varies from region to region, several communities have developed partnerships with local universities where practicum placements (often from Masters-level degree programs) are offered at Foundry centres. This includes practicum placements that provide centres with additional resourcing to support walk-in counselling services. Student teachers can also provide on-site tutorial support and/or support arts/rec activities. We’ve also seen medical residents come through at some centres, including both GPs and Psychiatry. As well, one community has a liaison from the local college that provides support for young people as they navigate post-secondary decisions, including student loans. As you can see, there are many opportunities for development. In-kind support to services/programs are welcome.

Please use language that best reflects the level of commitment. Language such as “agreed to in principle by senior leadership, but requiring further discussion/ information/ approval by board” is acceptable and understood.