It’s about your family.

It’s about your career.

It’s about you.

Presented To:

Family Service Ontario Conference

Presented By:

Brad Davis, Executive Director Family Services Kent

Don Pitt, Executive Director Family Counselling Centre

May 8, 2014

Erie St. Clair fseap

Overview

What prompted our Partnership?

How did we develop a proposal?

What did we learn?

How is the program working?

The Relationship

Sarnia-Lambton and Chatham-Kent had existing

relationships with area health care facilities

Windsor-Essex was a previous provider for one facility (lost

contract to Sheppell)

Sarnia-Lambton, Chatham-Kent had partnered previously

on School Board Contract and other contracts

Sarnia-Lambton, Chatham-Kent and Windsor-Essex

historically have met to collaborate, share information and

consult

Why our relationship is strong

Three Executive Directors all hired around the

same time

Only Family Service agency in each area

Previously have worked on joint-programming

Sarnia-Lambton and Chatham-Kent invested in

maintaining the contract for local health facilities

The Plan

Develop a singular response to the RFP as fseap

Keep the work/Get the work

Speak with our current Health Service / Hospital

EAP contract contacts about the RFP

What we did..

Decided to brand the proposal as Erie St. Clair fseap (matched

LHIN area)

Registered the business name Erie St. Clair fseap (consulted with

National Management Board first for permission)

Developed a joint venture agreement to clarify the limits of this

work (this was an internal document for the FS partners only—not

for the health care facilities)

Hired the national office of fseap to write the response to the RFP

Agreed amongst the three agencies to pay each other a higher

rate than the fseap nationally prescribed rate of $66.00

Outcome—We Got the Contract!

Awarded a five year contract

Windsor-Essex had to quickly create capacity to deliver services

(purchase rack cards, magnets, hire new affiliates)

For Family Services Kent & Family Counselling Centre it was

largely business as usual with a new contract

How the work is progressing

Just commenced year 3 of the contract

We actually operate fairly independently as agencies

Outside of the master agreement, each FS agency set up a

separate Addendum with their local Health Service agency /

Hospital to address local priorities and enabled flexibility

Payments are made to each individual FSO based on the

individual addendum

Lessons Learned

Our partnership was stronger than we had initially thought

There are ways to bid for work without compromising our

corporate structure (register a business name, joint venture

agreements)

Our approach to work is flexible

Local connections, quality service and reputation are important

We have the capacity to support each other to grow our

businesses

What we did really wasn’t innovative—it was practical and made

good business sense

Question?

It’s about your family.

It’s about your career.

It’s about you.