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Community Voice Mail

The Working Centre

Published December 1999

Currently we provide a Phone Mes­sage Service for about 400 people. On a limited income the cost of a per­sonal telephone is often not realistic; during times of transition having a re­liable place to receive messages is of­ten a challenge; if the person who is at home doesn’t understand English very well, it is difficult to receive ac­curate messages. And yet, in the struggle to find work, getting accu­rate messages can be critical.

For the past 18 years we have been taking messages for anyone who uses our number. We simply post a mes­sage and it is an individual’s respon­sibility to check for messages on the message board.

Volunteers work the reception desk, assisting us with taking these messages. Lately you may have called and received no answer at the Cen­tre. We really are here, we just haven’t been able to keep up with the number of phone calls and messages that are being left.

As well, when employers leave messages, they are made aware they are calling a community centre. This sometimes makes a person look tran­sient and thus unreliable, even before the person has a chance to present their skills and abilities.

In response to all these issues (and with the encouragement and support of the local Ontario Coalition Against Poverty group) we now have a sec­ond way messages can be left. We have initiated the Community Voice Mail System which holds 200 person­alized mail boxes so voice messages can be left directly for an individual, and then picked up- directly by that person. Anyone who uses voice mail at work or a phone company answering serv­ice will be familiar with the concept.

We’ve just begun signing people up for mailboxes and have no doubt that they will be quickly filled up. We are grateful to Human Resources Devel­opment Canada for assisting with this project. They have provided us with assistance in getting the system started and some funds toward the capi­tal expenditure of buying the system.

This new additional message serv­ice should be an important source of support for people looking for work.

Good Work News is The Working Centre’s quarterly newspaper that reports on our latest community building efforts and seeks out ideas which redefine work, consumerism, and sustainable living. First published in 1984, we have now published over 150 issues with a circulation of 13,000.

Subscribe to Good Work News with a donation of any amount to The Working Centre.

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The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.

This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.

In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.

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