Council celebrates longtime employees: Foster Parent Month
City Council honoured two employees with Long Service Awards at Tuesday’s regular council meeting.
Marissa Jordan began her 10-year career with the city’s recreation department in a maternity leave coverage position, which evolved into a permanent position.
Over the past decade, Jordan has been instrumental in planning and supervising such community events as High on Ice Winterfest, Canada Day, the Energetic Amazing Race; as well as fitness programming, sport programming and Kids’ Arena programming, to name a few of her endeavours.
Jessica Bowie, like Jordan started her career with the city in the recreation department and has filled a number of roles in the city throughout the past 20 years.
Bowie started her career with the city as an auxiliary Pool Attendant, before moving to cashier at the pool front desk, and making her way into the finance department. Then it was back to the pool as acting Pool Manager, until January 2016 when she joined the human resources team as an HR advisor, eventually landing in her current role as Chief Human Resources Officer.
Mayor Hansen said that Bowie can “always be counted on to tell us what we need t hear, not what we want to hear and because of this, we have been more successful as an organization.”
Both women have shown tireless commitment and dedication throughout their time with the city, along with a willingness to learn and excellent work ethic.
October is Foster Family Month –
Foster parents are often called on in the middle of the night to open their homes and are almost daily called on for emergency placements. Foster families make a great sacrifice in these times and have committed to altering their family lifestyles immediately on these requests for safe homes.
October is Foster Parent Appreciation Month, honouring those who have opened their hearts, homes, and lives to our most vulnerable population. Foster parents prove that time after time that during exceptional times and circumstances they are exceptional people.
This year marks the 34th year that Foster Parent Appreciation Month is being celebrated in Fort St. John and across Canada.
Tim Plant, coordinator with Community Bridge, and Bhumika Sharma from the Ministry of Children and Family Development attended Tuesday’s regular council meeting, seeking to have October proclaimed Foster Family Month in Fort St. John.
“Foster Parent Appreciation Month is a time when we can shed light on the extra-ordinary work of our foster parents who provide safe, stable and nurturing homes for the children in our community, who are unable to live with their own families,” said Sharma.
There are more than 8,000 children and youth in British Columbia who need temporary and long-term foster families. As of September 30, 4,836 children are the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
“The primary focus of MCFD is to support all the children and families in British Columbia to live in safe, healthy and nurturing families where they can remain strongly connected to their communities and culture,” she said.
Foster parents are ordinary local citizens, engaged in extra-ordinary acts of kindness, who have enormously positive impacts on the children to whom they have opened their hearts and homes, added Sharma.
“On a daily basis I see Fort St. John’s foster parents get excited to learn new skills in order to meet the needs and challenges many of these children face.”
Sharma says the Ministry is extremely grateful for the time Fort St. John foster families have given to the children of Fort St. John and recognize their dedication to improving the lives of those children and others throughout BC.