SIRCH applied for expanded federal funding for CAPC (Community Action Program for Children) & CPNP (Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program). Our population didn’t warrant additional funding, but our neighbours to the south, Victoria and Northumberland Counties, did not have CAPC/CPNP services and no new counties were being funded. SIRCH spearheaded a consultative process in both counties that gave the social and health services in those counties the opportunity to choose which organizations would provide the services, while SIRCH would funnel the funding. Northumberland Child Development Centre and the Ontario Early Years Centre Haliburton, Victoria, Brock are still providing CAPC & CPNP services for parents with children birth to six years of age, facing conditions of risk (such as poverty, illiteracy, low education etc).

Also in 1998, SIRCH developed a 72 hour curriculum-based program that increases the skills of children ages 3 to 5, in the areas of math, language, social, self-help and psychological skills. SIRCH successfully partnered with nine organizations across Ontario to pilot the very first School’s Cool program, and develop training for teachers/instructors. Children typically increase their skill development by one year, on average in a 6 week period! (Those results have been validated by longitudinal research.)

Feeling the need to augment government funding with social enterprise, SIRCH set up a Consulting Division to provide consulting and training services at a regional and provincial level. It was to be the first of many social enterprise endeavours.

Two journals were written and published by SIRCH. “My Journal into Motherhood” was a pregnancy journal, and “My Journal into Healing” allowed on individuals who had lost a loved one to journal their feelings and thoughts over a one year period.

Volunteers continued to play a huge part in SIRCH programs, and SIRCH was invited to participate in the World Volunteer Conference in Edmonton.

Women’s Emergency House, after being available 365 days a year to house women fleeing abusive situations with their children, closed. For nearly three years it had operated without any government funding, but the lack of sustainable funding was its undoing. Nonetheless, the model had received recognition from all over the world and was a prototype for rural communities.