Our programs help women break the cycle of poverty, addiction, mental illness, homelessness and crime.
We Can Help
Programs and services for women:
with shelter, family services, counselling, employment and educational support for women who are ….
At Risk: Women
Cynthia’s Place
Located in Surrey, Cynthia’s Place is a temporary shelter home for 14 homeless single women, or women and their children. Support workers provide awake around the clock support and management of the site for residents providing assistance and support to make plans to address their immediate crisis needs and housing plans. Staff and residents participate in the day-to-day living tasks involved in communal living.
A Key to Home
With teams in New Westminster, Surrey, Abbotsford and Victoria, A Key to Home targets women and homelessness in three ways:small emergency grants towards rent,help finding housing for those homeless and individualized support to address problems.
Maida Duncan Women’s Drop-in Centre
The New Westminster drop-in centre offers marginalized women a place to go for snacks, showers, laundry, free clothing and household items, as well as social activities and programs. The program is sponsored by the City of New Westminster.
Pathways
Through Pathways, EFry provides semi-independent, small apartments for women without resources or are in transitionto independent living.
Now, I feel like I belong. I have a community, a career and a positive future. I still have a great relationship with the folks at Firth.Tammy, former Firth Resident
At Risk: Women with children and families
Growing Great Kids
Growing Great Kids is an empathy-based, curriculum led parenting program for new and expecting mothers that covers complex concepts such as secure attachments, parental empathy, brain science and solution-focused skill-building strategies into easily understood highly interactive modules.The caregiver’s strengths and aspirations are identified and life skills are built into each session, which allows the strengthening of secure attachments, parenting skills, child development enhancements and stress management.
JustKids
JustKids is Canada’s only initiative aimed at mitigating the long-term negative impacts of parental incarceration through an umbrella of programs, educational initiatives and research. Made possible entirely thanks to donors, JustKids programs include:
- Spring and Summer Camps – During spring and summer school breaks, EFry welcomes children six through 15 at week-long Blue Sky overnight camps. Children enjoy a typical camp experience while specially trained counsellors help them develop vital coping, leadership and teambuilding and conflict management skills.
- Camp Counsellor Training and Employment Program – Children ageing out of Blue Sky Summer Camp are provided with the opportunity to receive job training and employment as camp counsellors. This provides older teens with valuable job experience and income, as well as support continuity for themselves and positive role modelling for younger campers.
- Saturday Club –When Blue Sky Camps are not in session, children aged six to 15 enjoy day-long supporting activity programs similar to a day camp.
Future Bright Program
Future Bright offers low income families free, hands-on assistance in accessing federal and provincial grants for their children’s post-secondary education – totaling up to $3,200. Research shows that having as little as $500 saved for post-secondary inspires more youth to finish high school and pursue further academic or vocational training.
Christmas Holiday Programs
EFry brings the holidays to nearly 2,000 people each year through our Christmas dinner, JustKids lunch with Santa and in-prison celebrations.
Anna Buxton Tenant and Community Resources Program
The EFry Anna Buxton Tenant and Community Resources Program is an initiative aimed at providing housing solutions and comprehensive support to our tenants and their families, in collaboration with community partners.As a housing provider, our mission is to empower women and women-led families by connecting them with the necessary community services and resources.
Sheena’s Place
Located in Surrey, Sheena’s Place is a temporary shelter home for 12 homeless women and their children. Support workers provide awake around the clock support and management of the site for residents providing assistance and support to make plans to address their immediate crisis needs and housing plans. Staff and residents participate in the day-to-day living tasks involved in communal living.
Rosewood Shelter
Located in Surrey, our new Rosewood Building has 60 shelter beds for women and children. Support workers provide awake around the clock support and management of those hotel units for residents providing assistance and support to make plans to address their immediate crisis needs and housing plans. Women are provided meal support and laundry.
Burnaby Integrated Family Program
Intensive counselling helps families stay together or reunite after a separation. Through individualized or family therapy, parent education and training EFry gives families in crisis the support and tools necessary to make home a safe and caring place to be.
New Westminster Integrated Family Program
Operating throughout the New Westminster area, Clinical Counsellors see families in their homes, or at office locations in each city. The counsellors provide short term family counselling to support families address serious conflict issues and intimate partner violence with the goal of lowering the risk to the child, of having their child apprehended. Therapeutic access is facilitated within an office setting for parents without custody of their children to maintain their relationship and gain therapeutic support with the parent-child relationship.
Elizabeth Gurney House
Located in New Westminster, Elizabeth Gurney House is a temporary shelter home for 12 homeless women and their children. Support workers provide awake around the clock support and management of the site for residents providing assistance and support to make plans to address their immediate crisis needs and housing plans. Staff and residents participate in the day-to-day living tasks involved in communal living.
A’mut Aboriginal Youth Program
A’mut is a culture-based, full-time attendance program helping aboriginal girls change the direction of their lives by learning to make healthy choices and develop new skills.
Justice System: Women
Pardon Me: A Criminal Record Suspension Program From EFry
EFry’s Pardon Me program assists qualifying people (all genders) in navigate and afford the criminal record suspension process (also known as a pardon). Record suspension eligibility varies.For more information, click here.
NOW Program
EFry and Battered Women’s Support Services have partnered to support women exiting trafficking, with the aim of building a wider network of collaborations and exiting pathways for women within Vancouver, Surrey and Abbotsford. Through educating and working with community partners and enhanced case management studies, women in EFry’s NOW (New Opportunity Waiting) Project will be supported to improve their health, well-being, safety, connection to communities and resources, and self-sufficiency within one year of entering the program.
Community In-Reach
Women leaving prison often need support reintegrating into their communities and finding housing. EFry volunteers help inmates at the Fraser Valley Institution and Alouette Correctional Centre with this transition.
Downtown Community Court
The Downtown Community Court in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside focuses on individuals with frequent contact with the Justice System due to the nature of their mental health and addictions. It seeks to provide offenders with the help they need to break the cycle. EFry volunteers assist clients in understanding and navigating the court process.
Law Clinic
Located in New Westminster, the legal advocate staffs EFry’s Poverty Law Clinic providing support to individuals in need of assistance dealing with situations such as rental disputes, evictions, debt collection, bankruptcy, mental health and employment standards, and accessing income programs.
Justice System: Women with Children and Families
Parenting
Mothers in the Fraser Valley Institution for Women self-enroll in a six week program to learn the importance of prenatal self care, early infant development, mother-child attachment and parenting. Video visitation is available enabling children to maintain contact with their mother through “face time” contact.
Girls’ Prison Advocacy
EFry supports girls in custody at the Burnaby Youth Custody Centre by ensuring they understand their rights and teaching them self-advocacy skills.
Burnaby Youth Custody Centre Services
EFry volunteers support youth of both sexes by providing recreational, educational and one-on-one visitation opportunities.
Storybook Program
EFry’s Storybook program brings parents and children together through the power of reading. EFry supplies new, age-appropriate books and records inmate parents reading them aloud. A CD player and the recordings are then sent to their children, giving them an opportunity to share a story together. The Storybook program is one of EFry’s most successful prison programs. It is available at Alouette Correctional Centre for Women, Fraser Valley Institution and Surrey Pretrial Centre. Due to its popularity with both mothers and fathers at Surrey Pretrial, the Storybook program was expanded into the all-male Ferndale Institution in early 2010.
Recovery and Transition: Women
Ellendale
Located in Surrey, workers support women with substance use issues to live in a communal full-time live-in structured support recovery program in Surrey. Support workers are responsible for case planning, group facilitation, linkage with community resources, transition planning, and the day to day running of the facility. The program has two streams comprised of up to 10 women who may reside for 3-5 months; and 12 expectant and new mothers and babies who may reside for up to eight months.
Sequoia at Firth Residences
Located in Abbotsford, EFry provides a welcoming, safe space for adult women (LGBTQ2S+ trans non-binary) (19+yo) with substance use dependency to address their substance use through a holistic approach to health care. Our evidence-based 90 day program promotes the strengths of each person in identifying goals that support wellness in different areas of life. EFry’s team of counsellors, nurses, support workers, medical staff and cooks ensure that you are fully supported in working towards wellness. For more information, click here.
Rosedale Intensive Residential Treatment Program
Located in Chilliwack, the program provides live-in services for women with moderate to severe substance misuse. Women participate in this 4-6 month bed-based program that addresses substance use management through individual support, intensive group programs, and clinical counselling. Operating on an awake around the clock basis, staff provide women with individualized case management planning and coordination, planning for the long-term management of their substance use, transition planning, and linkage with community resources. Clinical counselling and expressive arts therapy are included. Referrals required.
Columbia Place
Located in New Westminster, Columbia Place provides up to 17 women on conditional release from the Fraser Valley Institution for Women with a supportive communal housing program in which they can demonstrate their ability to self manage and complete the terms of their order from the Parole Board of Canada. Operating on an awake basis around the clock, staff support women to complete the community plan they presented to the Parole Board, and report, as legally required, on the women’s whereabouts to enable the governing legislative requirements to be met.
Third Party Administration – Vancouver Coastal, Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island
EFry case workers assist individuals who are in receipt of social assistance to receive the statutory and regulatory entitlements to which they are entitled. Clients are not able to access service through regular ministry offices due to their behaviours and high support needs. TPA case workers act as a bridge between Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction staff and clients, and provide linkages to services in the community.
Woolwerx
Woolwerx is EFry’s social enterprise that employs bothincarcerated women and those transitioning back tocommunity life. Women receive training to clean, card and spin donated woolinto artisanal yarns. Visit woolwerx.com tolearn more and link to our Etsy shop.
STEPS to Brighter Futures
A program for self-identifying women (ages 15-29) not currently employed, in school, or training, and looking for support and assistance as they move forward from personal challenges like homelessness, conflict with the law, and/or substance use. For more information click here.
Legacy Manor
Located in Abbotsford, Legacy Manor is a 37-unit supported housing program for women seeking an abstinence focused environment. Support workers provide awake management of the site and ensure the wellbeing of residents. A planned meal service offers two meals (breakfast and dinner) daily. Women live independently and have access to staff for support and case planning.
Mazarine Lodge
Located in the New Westminster community of Queensborough, Mazarine Lodge is a 44-unit transitional housing program for women experiencing homelessness. Support Workers provide awake management of the site, along with case planning to help residents transition to permanent housing. A planned meal service offers breakfast and dinner daily. Women are screened for eligibility by BC Housing and must be able to live independently.
Recovery and Transition: Women with Children and Families
Transition to New Beginnings
Located in Burnaby, Transition to New Beginnings, supports pregnant and new moms and babies assessed as having low substance use needs. Workers provide support throughout the day (total 63hr/wk) with case planning, psychoeducational and life skills support, linkage to community resources, housing and transition planning. Women who participate in this program have a self-identified goal of abstinence from substance use, and are supported in this semi-independent living environment.
This is the first time I’ve lived in a house. Cara and I sit in the back yard and enjoy the quiet. I like living with moms in the same place that I am at as we get our lives together. Kari
Ellendale Cradle
Located in Surrey, workers support women with substance use issues to live in a communal full-time live-in structured support recovery program in Surrey. Support workers are responsible for case planning, group facilitation, linkage with community resources, transition planning, and the day to day running of the facility.The program has two streams comprised of up to 10 women who may reside for 3-5 months; and 12 expectant and new mothers and babies who may reside for up to eight months.
