‘Networking’ becomes key in Agence’s community groups strategy
subTitleAbout 75 community groups provide health and social services in Laval
Published November 4, 2009
By Martin C. Barry • TLN

The Agence de la santé et des services sociaux, which oversees health and social services on Laval’s territory, appears to be encouraging community-based organizations to think seriously about doing more “networking” with other independent groups, or even with organizations under the Agence’s immediate oversight. The Agence, which supervises virtually every aspect in the provision of health and social services in the region, held a meeting last week, to which leaders with the community groups were invited, so they could comment on a new survey which summarizes their contributions.
A higher recognition
On the City of Laval’s territory, there are roughly 75 independent community-based organizations that provide health and social services of various kinds. Five pages of the survey extol the economic and synergistic virtues of networking among the groups and note that an overwhelming majority of them have already put networking into practice. “Basically, this is a higher recognition of their contribution,” Denis Blanchard, a senior administrator with the Agence, said about the survey, which was produced in conjunction with the Corporation de Développement Communautaire de Laval.
Blanchard acknowledged that the agency is working towards creating a greater unity between the groups and that further strides in this direction could follow. “This is the first of many steps that will come, always with the goal of recognizing this contribution in the Laval area,” he said. Blanchard said that while the groups are working more closely than ever, the Agence hopes to provide them with additional incentive. While even Blanchard acknowledged that some community groups are quietly making an issue about the impact such efforts could eventually have on their autonomy, he added that the agency is conscious of it and respects their desire to remain independent.
Closer to the network
“The closer they get to the health and social services network, the more they might wonder about such things,” he said. “It is certain that for community organizations it is a question of funding, autonomy, responsibility, and these things fundamentally will always be present. But for us here in Laval, it is a constant preoccupation of ours to respect their legitimacy at the level of responsibilities and their mandate. They all have their field of specialization and the least we can do as a health and social services network is to respect the tasks they have set out for themselves.”
According to the survey, Laval’s community-based groups provide more than 175,000 hours of services and activities annually, of which more than 11,000 hours are in conjunction with other groups and 8,600 hours with organizations belonging to the health network. On a weekly basis, the groups are open for business a total of 3,440 hours and provide 2,580 hours of individual activities and services. In all, the groups operate with 603 salaried employees, as well as 112 other workers whose services are made available through special government programs, and more than 5,000 volunteers. Their combined operating revenue is more than $25 million, of which they pay out more than $14 million in salaries.
Seniors services top list
The survey’s authors mapped out the locations of the organizations in most of Laval’s districts. The majority of the groups are in Laval-des-Rapides (14), Chomedey (12) and Pont-Viau (11). Although nearly 40 per cent of Laval’s population reside in these areas, poverty is also known to be on the rise there. In better off sectors, like les Îles Laval and Laval-sur-le-Lac, no local community-based groups were found to be active. Of the types of activities the groups specialized in, services for senior citizens was the most common, followed by mental health, intellectual deficiency, anti-poverty, help for physical infirmities and many others.