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Daku: Envision is all about people’s needs and filling gaps

Envision Counselling is celebrating its silver anniversary this May. These 25 years the non-for-profit organization dedicated to serving the community and filling existing gaps in counselling services offered in the southeast.
Christa Daku
Christa Daku is the executive director with the Envision Counselling and Support Centre. File photo

Envision Counselling is celebrating its silver anniversary this May. These 25 years the non-for-profit organization dedicated to serving the community and filling existing gaps in counselling services offered in the southeast.

On the brink of celebration, the Mercury talked to the Envision’s executive director Christa Daku about organization’s main achievements, challenges they’ve faced through the years and about where it is standing today.

“It’s all about filling gaps for us. Over the years, and since my role as an executive director, which is almost five years, we really wanted to be a yes-agency where we don’t have to turn people away. That doesn’t mean that we are going to see anyone and everyone, because we have excellent services in our area like mental health, addiction services, those types of things and we don’t believe in duplicating services, but we do believe in filling gaps. It allows the individuals in our service area, which is quite large, to be able to stay here for services instead of travelling to Regna let’s say,” said Daku.

Envision started as the Violence Intervention Program, focusing mainly on individuals whose lives have been impacted by the domestic and/or interpersonal violence.

Since that time the organization has grown leaps and bounds to include the children exposed to violence program and the family intervention counselling program. They also developed the support outreach program, which is aimed at preventions and education to schools and communities around interpersonal violence and healthy relationships.

“We also have the family support program, which has grown a lot as well. So we have contracts with social services in that program for families that need some support to enhance their parenting skills and be able to keep their children in the home rather than utilizing the foster care system,” Daku explained.

On top of that, now they have a voluntary parenting support program, where families can reach out where there is no child protection involvement or social services, to enhance their parenting skills and relationships with their children and be able to move forward in a healthy manner.

“And then most recently, April 1, we expanded into a fee for service counselling, which is for individuals who have an insurance program. They can come in and receive counselling from our contracted counsellor in Estevan and Weyburn. And for those who don’t have insurance we also offer at a lower fee,” said Daku.

Starting May 1, Envision also will offer walk-in counselling in Estevan and Weyburn, which will allow them to fill one more gap.

“Over the past years, we had a lot of data collection on the reality that a lot of times people only need one or two sessions. They don’t need long-term counselling. So this is where this will be really huge moving forward in our area to be able to offer those one-offs, where people just need to tweak and be able to walk away with a few tools. It’s a different style of counselling. It’s very brief and solution-focused,” said Daku.

The support that the community has given to Envision over all those years allowed the organization to grow stronger and serve people better.

“The city of Estevan has really helped us exponentially in various areas with sponsoring events and waving fees to allow us to gain a little bit more monetary value in fundraisers and stuff like that. I think, one of the biggest achievements that we’ve had over the past few years is our reputation. We’ve tried really hard as an agency to become that agency in the southeast where we are reputable, we are trusted for confidentiality... And we have a very qualified and experienced skilled staff in all our programs,” said Daku. 

But she believes that above all achievements it’s the lives that they’ve impacted over the 25 years providing support and helping people deal with difficult life circumstances.

The contemporary team of about 35 staff members works together to move Envision forward and overcome whatever challenges are to come. One of them is well known to many other non-profit organizations.  

“(It is a challenge) to be able to balance what’s coming in and going out. The needs of the people that we serve and the gaps in the services are always our number one priority. So as an agency what can we do to meet those needs within our limitations? And that’s a challenge for the board and myself to be able to manage on a yearly basis. But I think we are very innovative and creative and our staff goes above and beyond to do what needs to get done.”

The success of the organization proves that they know how to deal with challenges, and they always have the community on their side to support them as well.

“I would love to thank all the sponsors that have come forward to our anniversary and the individuals that have supported us over the years be it monetary or just giving us the kudos,” said Daku.