The Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of BC (Crisis Centre) has been named the winner of the Donner Canadian Foundation Award for Excellence in the Delivery of Education. The Crisis Centre was awarded $5,000 as the top organization in the Education category, and will compete with the six other category winners for the $20,000 William H. Donner Award for Excellence and the $5,000 Peter F. Drucker Award for non-profit management, both of which will be presented in Toronto on October 16, 2009.
The award recognizes the Crisis Centre’s community education program that delivers workshops on stress management and suicide prevention to high school students throughout the Lower Mainland and Sea-to-Sky Corridor. Since 1986, volunteers have facilitated over 8,300 classroom workshops to 210,000 teens and school personnel giving them the tools to help themselves and others deal with crisis.
At the heart of the Crisis Centre’s comprehensive suicide prevention program is a DVD called Choices2: Reaching Out (www.choices2.com), recently approved as one of the main teaching tools in the American Association of Suicidology’s safe schools program in the United States.
We are proud and thankful to be recognized by the Donner Foundation, says Ian Ross, Executive Director of the Crisis Centre. This award recognizes the work we do and the importance of creating innovative tools and approaches that are relevant to individuals in crisis.
The Donner Canadian Foundation Awards for Excellence in the Delivery of Social Services (Donner Awards) are Canada’s largest recognition program for non-profit social service agencies. They recognize and encourage best practices in non-profit management and aim to increase public confidence and support for Canada’s non-profit sector.
The Crisis Centre has been a Donner Award finalist for the past eight years, winning the award for Excellence in the Delivery of Crisis Intervention in 2003 and in 2005.