WELLINGTON COUNTY – Withdrawn funding has put the future of a well-known Wellington County suicide prevention program into uncertainty.
Presenting to county council Thursday morning, Administration, Finance and Human Resources Committee chair Earl Campbell announced the County of Wellington has taken over funding Here4Hope until June, after which the program's future remains unknown.
This follows the Canadian Mental Health Association of Waterloo Wellington (CMHAWW) stopping its financial obligations for the Here4Hope Partnership Agreement in November 2024 after "significant financial pressures necessitated a restricting of programming and services funded by CMHAWW."
A proposal on the future of Here4Hope and the County of Wellington's involvement will come to council in Spring 2025.
Campbell confirmed continuing the program until June will have a "negligible" impact on the budget. The county spent approximately $40,000 on the program in 2024.
Prior to funding being withdrawn, CMHAWW and the county shared costs equally for all Here4Hope events and initiatives. The county also invoiced CMHAWW 20 per cent of the project lead's compensation.
"Here4Hope has been a successful project and has potential to be restructured and reimagined to continue to provide community-based suicide prevention programming," said staff, in a report. "The county and CMHAWW both feel strongly that the work of promoting life and preventing suicide continues to be a priority."
In a phone interview, Here4Hope's project lead Cecilia Marie Roberts said while CMHAWW not meeting their financial obligations was "really unfortunate," the lack of funding "hasn't really impacted" the program.
"I think the community supports and wants to continue this work but these are very difficult times in healthcare, particularly community mental health," said Roberts.
During the next six months, Roberts said the focus will be on Here4Hope for men, which aims to raise awareness about men and suicide in Wellington County. After that, she's not sure.
"There's a role for so many places within the community for this work to show up, so I don't doubt that it will continue," said Roberts. "It might look a little different, it might not, but we're really committed to having good conversations about what's best for the community."
Here4Hope was created in June 2019 as a three-year partnership with CMHAWW before it was extended in November 2021 with an "expected end" in June 2025.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.