{"id":7807,"date":"2024-11-12T17:19:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T21:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=7807"},"modified":"2024-11-13T12:28:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T16:28:06","slug":"queens-county-to-have-full-time-senior-safety-co-ordinator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/11\/12\/queens-county-to-have-full-time-senior-safety-co-ordinator\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens County to have full-time senior safety co-ordinator"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Shelley Walker is Queens County’s senior safety co-ordinator. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

UPDATED WED., NOV. 13, 12:27 P.M.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Queens County will be getting a full-time senior safety co-ordinator.<\/span><\/p>\n

In their first meeting since the Oct. 19 election, Region of Queens councillors voted Tuesday to fund five-day-a-week senior safety services in Queens.<\/span><\/p>\n

Representatives of Queens Care Society asked council in August to consider making the senior safety co-ordinator a full-time employee of the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

In their August presentation to council<\/a>, representatives from the non-profit society said they couldn\u2019t afford to make the job full time. The group receives a $25,000 grant from the Nova Scotia government, as well as $5,000 from the Region of Queens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shelley Walker, the current co-ordinator, works three days a week. But advocates say the job should be full time because Walker can help only a fraction of the seniors in need.<\/span><\/p>\n

The co-ordinator helps promote senior health, safety and independence, working with older residents to help them stay in their own homes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Councillors voted Tuesday to provide up to $35,000 in funding to Lunenburg County Home Support to make the job full time until Oct. 31, 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coun. Maddie Charlton said she expects Queens Care Society to return to council before then to seek longer-term funding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that they would like an opportunity to see just how it fares out,” Charlton told council. <\/span><\/p>\n

“It\u2019s my understanding that the group is happy with this for now for the year. \u2026 I\u2019m happy to support this now. They do need the increased funding to make sure we have that capacity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Society chairman Grant Webber told councillors in August that as a part-timer, Walker can help only 7.5 per cent of the 3,300 Queens County residents over 65.<\/span><\/p>\n

In August, he asked the region to create a full-time senior safety position at a salary of $53,000 plus benefits, travel expenses and office space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Webber told QCCR on Wednesday that he\u2019s pleased the municipality OKed the funding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a wonderful decision. We\u2019ve got some things to work out and get an agreement with the municipality,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased and we\u2019re hoping that the municipality will take over full funding of the senior safety program, because with the funding from the municipality and the (provincial) grant, we\u2019ll have a senior safety co-ordinator here for five days a week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said other Nova Scotia municipalities have full-time co-ordinators and he hopes Queens will follow suit.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an October staff report, councillors were told that historically, the co-ordinator focused on senior safety three days a week. For the rest of the week, she worked as a supervisor for Queens Home Support.<\/span><\/p>\n

Financial difficulties forced Queens Home Support to close earlier this year. Lunenburg County Home Support now looks after those services in Queens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the October staff report, the year-long funding will give the Region of Queens and the Lunenburg group time to assess the service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Queens CAO Cody Joudry assured councillors and the public that the co-ordinator will still be based in Queens County.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s never been any discussion whatsoever about the idea that that position would be based in Lunenburg.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to a question from Coun. Stewart Jenkins, Joudry said the region hasn\u2019t yet analyzed how much it would cost to make the co-ordinator a municipal employee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/seniorsafetyupdatednov1324.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED WED., NOV. 13, 12:27 P.M. Queens County will be getting a full-time senior safety co-ordinator. In their first meeting since the Oct. 19 election, Region of Queens councillors voted Tuesday to fund five-day-a-week senior safety services in Queens. Representatives of Queens Care Society asked council in August to consider making the senior safety co-ordinator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1427,2599,95,664,2435,24,2315,2569,2314,2309],"class_list":["post-7807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-cody-joudry","tag-lunenburg-county-home-support","tag-maddie-charlton","tag-queens-care-society","tag-queens-home-support","tag-region-of-queens","tag-senior-safety","tag-senior-safety-coordinator","tag-seniors","tag-shelley-walker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7807"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7821,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7807\/revisions\/7821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}