Funding loss forces Bridges to cut staff, reduce capacity

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on April 11, 2025.

asmith@medicinehatnews.com

Though facing a reduced capacity, Bridges Family Programs wants the community to know it is not going anywhere.

Due to changes at the provincial level, Bridges has lost one of its sources of funding, explained executive director Sharon Mickey. Because of the unexpected loss in funding, they have had to reduce the number of staff, but she assures that all programs will still be available.

“We’re still going to be running all of the programs that we have in the past. We’re just going to be doing it at a more limited capacity,” said Mickey. “We will have to limit the number of families that we were able to serve, or they may experience longer wait times for in-home services.”

This will also affect the capacity of the Parent Education programs, with fewer groups being run.

Another consequence of this change is that the Bow Island and County of 40 Mile office has closed as the funder in question also provided funds for that office. Mickey encourages those in the affected community to seek out Parents as Teachers, which continues to operate in the area.

“We won’t have as many family support workers to support the families, which means we just won’t have as many families that we can support, but we’re still taking referrals,” said Mickey. “We still have what’s called our Hub program, so anybody that calls in and is needing some support, we’ll get support from our hub.”

The Hub program is a part of a Family Resource Network, a community based approach introduced in 2020 by the provincial government with the goal of reducing the number of children needing government care.

Bridges Family Support Programs will continue to serve as the hub, helping to connect those seeking aid with not only their own programs, but the work of partners in the area that may meet the need.

Currently, Mickey says finding another source of funding to bolster capabilities is a high priority for the coming year, but in the meantime, Bridges Family Programs is still in operation.

“We’re still supporting families, we’re still taking referrals. People are still welcome to come into our office and ask for help, and we will do our absolute best to support everybody that needs it,” said Mickey.

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