CEO Update

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CEO Update - October 2024

2024 AGM and Conference

Thank you to everyone who attended this year’s 30th anniversary conference, Fresh Perspectives. It was wonderful to connect in person and we are grateful for your participation in sessions, networking events and at the AGM. For those attendees who have not yet filled out our post-conference evaluation, we would appreciate your feedback and comments. To show our gratitude for taking the time to complete the evaluation, CSSEA will be entering all responses (with contact details provided) into a draw for one of two 2025 full conference registrations – a $575 value each. CSSEA will close the survey at 5pm on October 25 and winners will be notified the week of October 28. CSSEA’s 2025 conference will be taking place in Kelowna from October 8-10.

Available speaker presentations have now been posted on our conference website. We will continue to add presentations as they are submitted.

2024-25 Board and Panels

Members met at their respective divisional panel meetings at last week’s AGM to select their 2024-26 panel representatives. We congratulate the following panel members, including two new members on the Community Living Services panel, Jennifer Fowler and Karen Hansen.…

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CEO Update - September 2024

Local Issues Negotiations

Members have been busy over summer pulling together proposals for amending their local issues memoranda. Our HRLR staff have seen a sharp increase in this activity with the deadline for tabling proposals having just past on September 15. Local issues negotiations is one of the hallmarks of the beginning of the collective agreements renewal process and our staff will be available to you to assist in renegotiating them. The deadline for completing local issues negotiations is December 15 in accordance with MOA#1. Please schedule any negotiations assistance you need with your Advocate/Consultant as soon as you can, as they will each be assisting a number of employers in this process over the next few months.

Complimentary Leadership Training

With September traditionally being the ‘back to school’ month, we invite members to encourage their new hires and managers to sign up for complimentary leadership training on My Leadership Hub. With the generous support of the Federation of Community Social Services of BC, we are able to offer free access to seven labour relations modules, including those that address performance management, progressive discipline and attendance management, until June 2025. The Leadership Hub will generate certificates of completion following an individual’s successful completion of each module.

In order to start taking advantage of this valuable resource, simply go to this membership page, select “Join Now” under basic membership and fill in your details. If you have any questions, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .…

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CEO Update - August 2024

Upcoming 2025 Bargaining Feedback Webinar

CSSEA’s bargaining team representatives and I recently wrapped up a six-city tour of the province to hear issues of importance to the membership as we prepare for the next round of bargaining. Special thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to the fulsome discussion. CSSEA staff are now collating the feedback, anecdotes and stories that were shared and will incorporate common themes in our bargaining planning.

We will also be providing one more opportunity for members to contribute bargaining feedback by convening a virtual meeting for members of your leadership teams who were unable to attend an in-person session. The meeting will be held on September 4 at 9:30 am. Those wishing to attend may register here; a meeting link will be sent registrants approximately 24 hours before the session. Please note that the session is only open to participants who are excluded from the bargaining unit.

If you are unable to attend yet want to provide specific feedback, please e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

2024 AGM and Conference – Final Hotel Rooms Remaining

Due to an incredible initial registration uptake, over 95% of hotel rooms available in CSSEA’s contracted room block for this year’s AGM and Conference, Fresh Perspectives, have been reserved. We encourage anyone who still requires accommodations to reserve their room at the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel as soon as possible. In the meantime, CSSEA is monitoring the room block and will work with the hotel to add rooms if required, though any new room block will likely be at a higher rate. Members are also reminded to register for the conference before the early bird rate expires on September 10, as several sessions have limited space. I look forward to celebrating CSSEA’s 30th anniversary with you in Vancouver from October 9-11!…

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CEO Update - July 2024

CEO and Bargaining Tour

The CEO and Bargaining tour commenced last week in Surrey with a fulsome and productive discussion on bargaining objectives, challenges, aspirations and realities. It was wonderful to meet my Fraser Valley-based colleagues and I thank everyone for their insightful input. The tour continues on Vancouver Island this week and I invite leaders and managers who are excluded from the bargaining unit to attend. Registration can be completed here. All meetings will start at 930am with the following locations remaining:

Date City Venue
July 16 Victoria South Pender Island Ballroom
Hotel Grand Pacific Victoria
463 Belleville Street
July 22 Prince George Fraser Room
Courtyard by Marriott Prince George
900 Brunswick Street
July 23 Vancouver HSBC Hall
Ground floor
UBC Robson Square
800 Robson Street
July 29 Kelowna Ramada Kelowna Hotel & Conference Centre
2170 Harvey Avenue
Oak/Teak meeting room

If you prefer to e-mail your issues to a confidential mailbox, please do so at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

2024 AGM and Conference

Registration is now open for CSSEA’s 2024 AGM and Conference, Fresh Perspectives, taking place October 9-11 in Vancouver at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel. Aside from offering an exciting program of professional development workshops, this year’s conference will celebrate CSSEA’s 30th anniversary, as well as our ninth Community Social Services Awards of Excellence, sponsored by Telus. I encourage members to register before the early bird rate expires and hope to connect with you this fall.…

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CEO Update - June 2024

Introductory Greetings

As I reflect on my first week in this new role as CEO, I wanted to take a moment to (re)introduce myself to the membership. While first weeks of a new job are always a whirlwind of new faces, consecutive meetings and steep learnings about an organization, my experience has been somewhat atypical in that it has, at times, felt pleasantly familiar. Having served as CSSEA’s Director of HRLR in the early 2000s, I am heartened to re-connect with many former colleagues. Also, while the sectoral landscape has evolved greatly in the last decade, many core issues continue to remain relevant and timely today. This foundational knowledge will be invaluable as I learn more about the initiatives, strategic milestones, collective agreements updates and new membership issues that have emerged since my time in the sector. I look forward to taking the days and months ahead to get to know my staff, key government contacts, our Board and Panels and other sectoral partners, so a solid agenda of priorities and goals can be developed. I also look forward to meeting as many of you as possible during my summer tour and at our AGM and Conference, taking place October 9-11 in Vancouver at the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel.   

Upcoming Member Meetings

Preparations for the next round of bargaining are underway and as part of our canvassing of the membership on key issues that should be considered at the bargaining table, I will be joining CSSEA’s bargaining spokespeople in a series of in-person meetings around the province. CSSEA staff are currently working out agenda items and meeting dates in July, and members will be notified as soon as registration details become available. In the meantime, if members prefer to e-mail their bargaining issues, they can do so in confidence to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

2024 Annual Report

As CSSEA prepares to produce its 2024 Annual Report, I invite members who wish to showcase images from their agencies over the past year to connect with us. Over the years, CSSEA’s Annual Report has become as much an operations and financial document as it is a recognition of member triumphs, particularly their involvement in events, in service of the community, in celebration of staff achievements, and the like. If you have such images featuring individuals who provided prior consent, please e-mail them to Doris Sun, Director of Communications, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The deadline for submission is July 26.…

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CEO Update - June 2023

Bargaining Update

With the collective agreements now ratified, CSSEA’s attention has turned to implementation and delivering on the commitments the parties made at the bargaining table. To that end, we have been working with the CSSBA on the time-consuming process of producing the new collective agreement text (and eventually booklets), as well as a number of other items that still require agreement between the parties.

Implementation of new agreements is often challenging as the process is complex, perhaps no more so than in the social services sector, which has a multitude of funders and different funding models. On May 3, the CSSBA filed a policy grievance with CSSEA claiming many of their members had not yet received the April 1, 2023 wage increases and/or the retroactive pay that was negotiated. Unions, funders and PSEC are aware that in spite of everyone’s best efforts, the complexity of flowing the new monies to employers in a timely manner is presenting a challenge. CSSEA will continue to provide updates on the status of the policy grievance as the parties will be discussing the matter later in June.

Awards of Excellence

Thank you to all who took the time to submit a nomination for this year’s Community Social Services Awards of Excellence, sponsored by TELUS. Nominations are now closed and a member panel recently met to review submissions and select a shortlist of candidates that will move forward to the judging phase. A final judging session is set to take place at the end of June, during which time winners will be selected. We look forward to celebrating this year’s recipients with you at the Awards of Excellence Luncheon, taking place on October 26, 2023 during our AGM and Conference in Kelowna.…

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CEO Update - December 2022

Bargaining Update

I would like to thank all CSSEA members for engaging in the essential services designation process. For some of you, it was a smooth process and for others, it presented you with challenges and involved negotiating your levels at the Labour Relations Board (LRB) with the assistance of its mediators. While this can be a difficult aspect of provincial bargaining, it is critical and necessary in order to prevent immediate harm to many of our individuals who cannot go without services in the event of job action.

All Orders have now been issued by the LRB to establish the levels that would apply in the event of a strike. Despite that, CSSEA and your employer bargaining committee continue to work hard to avert strike action and reach acceptable tentative agreements for your consideration and ratification. While the Indigenous Services division continues to bargain this month, General Services and Community Living Services is taking a hiatus until the week of January 23, 2023, during which the parties are scheduled to meet again. At this time, the unions have not pursued taking strike votes from their members and the tone at the table remains positive.

Management and Excluded Compensation

While CSSEA has not yet concluded collective bargaining, members may be keenly following the direction of negotiations at other tables and noticing the wage settlement pattern is far more significant than what employers have experienced in recent past rounds of bargaining. CSSEA has long championed higher wages in our sector and has aimed over the last few rounds of bargaining to achieve wage comparability with our colleagues in Health. Also while outside our mandate as an employer association, CSSEA, the Board and the Employer Bargaining Committee have also been active in relaying to government the struggles of salary compression and inversion for management and excluded staff, particularly the impact it has on organizations’ ability to deliver services. I am pleased to share that this government has acknowledged excluded management salary pressures and committed to clarifying its approach and providing a clear funding commitment for management and excluded staff for 2022-23 (and possibly beyond) following the conclusion of collective bargaining in our sector. Government recognizes that a clear and timely response will help the sector maintain stable and quality service delivery and CSSEA will keep the membership apprised of updates as they become available in the New Year.…

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CEO Update - October/November 2022

2022 Board and Panel Members

At this year’s in-person AGM, held in Vancouver, Panel and Board members were confirmed for 2022-24 terms. I congratulate Valerie Janz from Interior Community Services on her new appointment to the General Services panel and as always, thank all returning Panel members for putting their names forward and contributing their expertise and guidance to serve the membership. Your 2022-23 divisional panels are as follows:

Indigenous Services:
Chair: Melanie Hudson – Island Métis Family & Community Services Society
Vice Chair: Adam Calvert – La Societé de les Enfants Michif (Métis Family Services)
Kathleen Bennett – Inter-Nation Family and Community Services Society
Colleen Lucier – Lii Michif Otipemisiwak Family & Community Services Society
Bernadette Spence – Vancouver Aboriginal Child & Family Services Society

Community Living Services:

Chair: Tammy Khanna – Independent Living Housing Society of Greater Victoria (2022-24)
Vice Chair: Dawn Hein – Mission Association for Community Living (2021-23)
Fernando Coelho – posAbilities Association of British Columbia (2022-24)
Ryan Cucheron – Venture Training (2021-23)
Dana Gorbahn – Gorbahn Professional Alternative Resources Inc. (2021-23)
Shari Mahar – Community Integration Services Society (2022-24)
Tanya Sather – Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion (2021-23)
Anita Sihota – Delta Community Living Society (2022-24)

General Services:
Chair: Judy Valsonis – Touchstone Family Association (2021-23)
Vice Chair: Jaye Russell – Sea to Sky Community Services Society (2021-23)
Tyrell Arnold – Connexus Community Resources (2022-24)
Valerie Janz – Interior Community Services (2022-24)
Ann Kutcher – Westcoast Family Centres Society (2022-24)
Sanjeev Nand – Langley Community Services Society (2021-23)
Rod Santiago – Archway Community Services (2021-23)
Tim Veresh – PLEA Community Services Society of British Columbia (2022-24)…

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CEO Update - July 2022

2022 Bargaining

This round of bargaining has been different from previous rounds as it has required a higher level of patience and endurance from our bargaining committee. Over the last six months, we have worked through a number of employer and union language and interpretive issues as we attempt to modernize the collective agreements. I am cautiously optimistic we will conclude the negotiations without service disruptions but nevertheless, we need the membership to complete their essential services plans as it is a Labour Relations Board requirement that we be ready in the event job action occurs. We have more bargaining dates scheduled in August and September in an effort to continue to make progress at the table. The parties continue to work civilly and respectfully on all topics placed on the table on which we have an ability to influence, within the framework of the most recent provincial financial mandate.

On another matter, CSSEA provided the provincial government with feedback on the challenges members are facing with implementing the new Employment Standards Act minimum sick leave provisions for employees covered by our collective agreements. In particular, we conveyed the payroll challenges and additional administrative resources needed to calculate an “average day’s” pay for sick leave and suggested changes to better align with collective agreement processes. The government considered our feedback but at this time, is not looking to make any changes to the Act.

2022 Compensation and Employee Turnover Report

The 2022 Compensation and Employee Turnover Report is now due. It is critical that CSSEA receives your report, as the information collected arms CSSEA with quantitative data that it can present to government on the macro sectoral issues of funding, collective bargaining and compensation. If you have already completed the report, we thank you for your participation. If you have not yet completed the report, please contact us by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .…

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CEO Update - June 2022

2022 Bargaining

While CSSEA will resume collective bargaining with the Community Social Services Bargaining Association this month, bargaining is set to pause at the end of June and resume again in September, as the sector prepares for essential services planning over the summer months in the event the sector faces job action in the fall. Members are required to review and update their 2012 Essential Services Orders (where they exist), particularly where services are now delivered differently than prior to the pandemic and in order to determine the current required levels of essential services. Members must report back to CSSEA on whether they have essential services and, if applicable, remit the necessary forms. For a comprehensive guide on the essential services process, along with what is required from you, consult this CSSEA Info.

2022 Annual Report – Call for Photos

As CSSEA prepares to publish its 2022 Annual Report, we are once again inviting members to send photos from their agencies to be considered for inclusion. We welcome member photos of staff events, community events in which your agency had a presence, individuals served, or any other image that highlights the work your organization is doing in your community. We ask that anyone featured in your submitted photos consent to their image being published in print and on our website prior to your submission. The deadline for submission is July 22, 2022 and photos can be e-mailed to Doris Sun, Director of Communications, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

2022 Compensation and Employee Turnover Report

The deadline to complete this year’s Compensation and Employee Turnover Report has been extended to June 30, 2022. It is critical that CSSEA receives your report, as the information collected arms CSSEA with quantitative data that it can present to government on the macro sectoral issues of funding, collective bargaining and compensation. Members with any questions on report completion can e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . We thank all members for submitting their final reports by the revised due date of June 30, 2022.…

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CEO Update - May 2022

Community Social Services Health and Safety Association of BC

The Community Social Services Health and Safety Association of BC (Association) held its inaugural Annual General Meeting on May 4th, 2022, and affirmed its first slate of Board Members. They comprise union and non-union employers, workers and industry members, and together, will work to steer the Association through its critical early years. We congratulate:

  • Janice Barr - Community Living Society
  • Tanya Behardien - OneSky Community Resources
  • Brian Campbell - B.C. General Employees Union
  • J. Gordon Cote – Nanaimo & Area Resource Services for Families Programs Ltd.
  • Christine Fewtrell - Hulitan Family & Community Services Society
  • Chantel Foden - Spectrum Society for Community Living
  • Nina Hansen - Health Sciences Association BC
  • Diane Hong - SUCCESS (The United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society)
  • Tammy Khanna - Independent Living Housing Society
  • Christina Lloyd-Jones - Hospital Employees Union
  • Jonny Morris - Canadian Mental Health Association – BC Division
  • Pamela Pye - B.C. General Employees Union
  • Michael Reed - Canadian Union of Public Employees
  • Denise Subotin - WorkSafeBC
  • Judy Valsonis - Touchstone Family Association

I will continue to serve as Interim Board Chair while the Association recruits and confirms a permanent Chair.
The creation of this first-of-its-kind safety association covering 2,200 unionized and non-unionized employers is a monumental accomplishment and one that the community social services sector should be immensely proud of. I thank Association Director Satvinder Basran for his tactical leadership and also, our many sectoral partners whose collective vision turned a concept into reality: Rick FitzZaland – The Federation of Social Services of BC, Selena Kongpreecha – Community Social Services Bargaining Association, and Denise Subotin – WorkSafeBC.…

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Communications Contact

Doris Sun
Director of Communications
604.601.3110
604.319.5010
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.