United in our commitment to care

The Ontario Community Support Association represents the home and community support sector in Ontario. OCSA members are community based, not-for-profit organizations that provide services to help people live at home.

What's New at OCSA

2010 Conference
2010 Annual Conference 
Are you tired of cooking the same thing over and over?
Are you bored with the same predictable results? 
Do you wish you had some new ideas to renew your passion in life and in work? 
Then this just might be the conference event you’ve been waiting for.

CLICK HERE to view the conference website.

OCSA/CRNCC Symposium

OCSA/CRNCC Symposium: Whatever Happened to Aging at Home?
What are the major triumphs and trials of Aging at Home in Ontario and beyond?
What’s worked well “on the ground?”  What hasn’t?  What are key lessons learned?
Why has the community support agenda proved so vulnerable to changing politics?
What can be done to convince policy-makers that investments in community supports are investments in health system sustainability?

It’s time to ask some tough questions.  Make plans to join us for this important event.

Click here for more information

August 24, 2010 - Capacity Builders Offers Three New Charity Information Workshops
Applying CRA’s Fundraising Guidance and Best Practices
Do you know what Canada Revenue Agency’s Fundraising Guidance means to your organization?  If you don’t know – it’s time to find out!  This one-day workshop provides a plain-language overview of CRA’s Fundraising Guidance, and explores how you can apply key elements in the Guidance to your charity’s requests for support. Join Cynthia Armour, CFRE and learn lots of practical fundraising tips, and get advice about how to develop a fundraising plan for your organization.
  
Understanding CRA’s Fundraising Guidance and More (morning)
The Dos and Don’ts of Charitable Receipting (afternoon)
Facilitated by charity lawyer Mark Blumberg, this workshop will review the Fundraising Guidance as well as explore key compliance and standards issues for charities.  You’ll learn about CRA’s rules on appropriate allocation of fundraising expenses and new transparency, accountability and disclosure requirements that have been introduced for Canadian charities.   In the afternoon, Mark will tackle the nitty-gritty of receipting where you’ll explore when is your charity allowed to issue official donation receipts and for how much,  the rules about split receipting and how it affects your galas, golf tournaments and other fundraisers, and how to avoid the top receipting mistakes.

July 23, 2010 -  The Community Support Service Health Human Resource Report is coming!
It has taken longer than expected to roll up and analyse the data but we are pleased to announce the CSS HHR report will be released in August.  This important information will provide CSS agencies and its funders insightful information on the current state of paid and unpaid labour in the community support sector.

Click here for preliminary facts from the report and order information.

May 14, 2010 - Federal Income Security Submission
The OCSA recently responded to a federal government consultation on income security for seniors. We felt it was the responsible thing to do to ensure issues around appropriate government support for home and community care were a part of this important national discussion. Our submission may be read here.

May 7, 2010 - OCSA Acts on BILL 16 - Legislation on Compensation Freeze
OCSA has written to Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan requesting that home and community support provider agencies be afforded an exemption from Bill 16, legislation that places stringent restrictions on salary increases for Ontario’s public sector workers. Click here to see the letter.

The legislation can be found here: www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&Intranet=&BillID=2292

 

April 16, 2010 -  Research shows supporting frail elderly at home can better value for our health system
Research conducted by Boston Consulting Group for The Change Foundation and the Community Provider Associations Committee (CPAC) quantifies for the first time the economic value of home and community care services for a discrete population in Ontario and provides an extrapolated figure reflecting the potential province-wide savings accrued from avoiding higher-cost institutional care.

The Valuing Home and Community Care project, funded by The Change Foundation, the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres, and OCSA among others was focused on a subset of the Home and Community Care client base of the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant CCAC - a representative sample of the frail elderly 75 years and older who account for approximately 25% of CCAC clients.
By looking at that particular group's use of home and community care, assisted living/supportive housing services, primary care, long-term care, and hospitals and calculating costs avoided and costs incurred -- including the impact on informal caregiver productivity --, the analysts arrived at a potential cost savings of $13 million in this region alone from the appropriate use of home and community services, with projections of potential province-wide saving of $150 million per year.
Read the report summary: CLICK HERE

February 8, 2010 - In our written submission to the Minister of Finance, OCSA made the following two recommendations:
  *Recommendation #1 – Stay the course on funding support for Home and Community Care, particularly the Aging at Home Strategy
  *Recommendation #2 – Enhance the results home and community care can deliver by making strategic investments
To read our submission click here.

January 27, 2010 - OCSA and STRIVE! (www.strive.com) are pleased to announce that the GEM Assessment for Boards is now available to OCSA members at special pricing. The GEM Assessment for Boards (www.strive.com/gem-assessment/) was created to help boards identify their strengths and areas of growth as they develop a board team that is both smart and healthy. The questions in this user-friendly online tool have been carefully designed so each of an organization’s board members can rate the board’s effectiveness in less than 20 minutes.  The assessment is based on the seven disciplines of governance excellence, outlined in The Imperfect Board Member.

January 6, 2010 - OCSA Learning Library Goes Live!
Couldn’t make it to the OCSA Great !deas Conference Executive Series sessions?
No problem! We'll bring the Series to you.

Welcome to the OCSA Live Learning Center (www.softconference.com/ocsa), a new way to access and experience OCSA Conference content!

What are the Executive Series Sessions?
Click here to view the PDF Brochure

These exciting sessions are still available, and can be re-experienced, AS THEY HAPPENED on October 21-22, 2009.

Both sessions are available for purchase as a single package starting online at $149 or as a CD-ROM for $249 (plus shipping & applicable taxes). 

Access sessions that will help you with service design and planning as well as real-time strategic planning for changing times and are available to you online or on CD-ROM via the NEW OCSA Live Learning Center! Even if you couldn’t make it, you can still get the value of the Great !deas Executive Series session - including $ and Sense of Building Your Business or Real Time Strategic Planning within a Constantly Changing Environment in audio synchronized to PowerPoint presentations. You can even download MP3 files to your iPod™ for portable listening! 

For more information and to purchase, please visit www.softconference.com/ocsa.