In response to a previous article on the Ending Violence Association:

Ending Violence Association and member associations around the province are in the process of developing a press release to address issues related to procurement policies and contracts associated with counselling programmes like “Stopping the Violence” and “Children Who Witness Abuse”.

As the local agency here in the South Okanagan that administers those contracts, Desert Sun is very concerned about retaining these vital community programs offered free to anyone that requests services.

What happens in the procurement process is, that larger, more powerful agencies from other parts of the region can come in, compete for those contracts and potentially sub-contract them out to lesser qualified individuals, or take them over completely.

It pits agency against agency in competition for the contracts that one association may have already been delivering for many years with great success!

I would add that the Ministry of Justice contracts are held by the Victims Services and Crime Prevention.

Tamara Aspell
Executive Director
Desert Sun