Steinbach Family Resource Centre welcomes new executive director with fresh ideas

The Steinbach Family Resource Centre has welcomed a new executive director with innovative ideas for new programming and avenues to pursue new sources of funding.

Stephanie den Hollander was hired as executive director in August after long-time executive director Jo-Anne Dalton resigned in May. She was born and raised in Winnipeg and has spent a career in the non-profit sector starting in Northwestern Ontario as a counsellor and program coordinator in a women’s crisis shelter supporting children. She then lived and worked in Thompson for three years as program manager for the Canadian Mental Health Association. Den Hollander moved back to Winnipeg, but over time she missed rural life and moved with her family to Ste Anne for a few years before finally settling in La Broquerie West.

“I’m like a big city girl turned small town lover,” she said with a laugh.

As she had been working in the non-profit sector in southeast Manitoba for 12 years, she had built up a network and started her own consulting business in 2019, but in a full-time capacity in 2022. When she saw the posting for the Steinbach Family Resource Centre she knew she had to apply as it held what her life’s work and passion centred around, which was supporting families and the community. Den Hollander also saw the potential in growing and expanding the organization.

“And I am a big vision thinker,” she said. “It’s just kind of part of who I am naturally.”

Since the summer, she has been meeting with different organizations in the Southeast and with clients who use the centre’s resources in trying to determine what the needs are and how to bridge supports for people.

She said mental health is one support she wants to bring in and grow at the centre. While there is post-partum support for mothers at the resource centre – it’s limited, with mothers asking for more programming. “And so I’m listening to that need and looking for ways to add those services, and in turn, that will bring in more funding opportunities for us as an organization when we are able to branch out in those areas,” she said.

Den Hollander has some promising leads for mental health and wellness support funding, which she hopes will lead to the return of a nutritional component with a dietitian who can meet with families on a consultation basis within a wellness program.

The centre lost its funding for a dietitian, chronic disease programming, and all pediatric and prenatal dietitian consults in May after the province rejected its request for money. The resource centre was the only free registered dietitian service for young families in the Southeast.

Den Hollander also wants the centre to be a bridge for mental health services and wellbeing by using the centre as a stepping-stone with peer support or paraprofessional support that would carry the person to clinical support services.

She also wants the centre to grow its role in education, as it already supports families from pregnancy to kindergarten.

“Maybe there’s a bit more bridging that we could do there to help those families,” she said. “So that’s a little bit further down the road, but that is a vision I have is I would love to come alongside school teams and our school divisions across Southeast Manitoba to offer more supports as allied partners with them in families.”

The new executive director recently built a connection with Eastman Immigrant Services to work with newcomers. She is looking at also incorporating new programming, such as cultural cooking classes in the centre’s new commercial kitchen.

Steinbach Family Resource Centre has already partnered with Agape House in providing a space for its healing circle, but den Hollander wants Southeast organizations to reach out and see how they can partner together to provide supports to families.

“I want to actually hear from other service providers and organizations who are hearing this from families that they’re working with, but also from families that we’re working with and just families in the community…,” she said. “I want to hear that because I’ll find a way to make it happen.”