In response to the new directives established by the Board for the upcoming year, in the first week of January PICA will be publishing its three strategic objectives for 2015 here on its website.
PICA hosted its first two booths in BC, the first being Zoomer at the BC Trade and Convention Centre and the second being the Advocis Financial Planners Convention at the Vancouver Italian Cultural Centre.
Non-profit partners cosponsoring included the B.C. Bereavement Helpline, Lower Mainland Grief Recovery, B.C. Victims of Homicide, and the Gardens of Gethsemani. Four for-profit partners also co-sponsored the event: Mackenzie, Kearney, Columbia Bowell, and Kearney South Surrey Funeral Homes.
The PICA Board also engaged in two full-day workshops to update its goals, mission, and strategic plan.
PICA continued to host seminars and joined with several partners/members to share its first booth at a convention: the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association Convention in Ottawa.
Sixty Minutes broadcast a scathing report on cemetery and funeral home abuse due to inadequate regulation and enforcement in America, siting that SCI currently charged $23,000 for their plots in a Jewish Cemetery in Los Angeles. A truly shocking revelation about this observation is that plots in SCI’s Burnaby Cemetery, Ocean View, are selling for closer to double!
The Professionals in Care Alliance continues to meet with community groups and churches holding seminars to help members and residents to achieve better end of life care through increased options and education.
BC Bereavement Day this year was again marked by the fifth annual Victim’s Memorial and dove release, arranged again at Mountain View Cemetery, and this year featuring speaker Janet Wright, famed actor of the Corner Gas and Beach-comer series, again in partnership with the BC Bereavement Helpline and Victims of Homicide in Vancouver.
The Professionals in Care Alliance has begun to research other possibilities for cemeteries in the lower mainland as well as continuing to arrange meetings and seminars with community and church groups working to build awareness around the need for improving both the options available and the regulations governing end-of-life care.
BC Bereavement Day this year was changed to the third Sunday of May, which is ‘Hospice Month’ and as such the fourth annual Victim’s Memorial and dove release were arranged again at Mountain View Cemetery, again in partnership with the BC Bereavement Helpline and Victims of Homicide in Vancouver.
The Professionals in Care Alliance continue to arrange meetings and seminars with community and church groups working to build awareness around the need for improving both the options available and the regulations governing end-of-life care.
On BC Bereavement Day this year PICA arranged it’s third annual Missing Women’s Memorial at Mountain View Cemetery in conjunction with the BC Bereavement Helpline and Victims of Homicide in Vancouver.
The Vancouver Sun on March 17th writes a two page article on the Kearney Family Business going into extensive detail over the work they have done to support improving the quality of end-of-life-care in B.C.
The FFA and the Professionals in Care Alliance continue to arrange meetings and seminars with community and church groups working to build awareness around the need for improving both the options available and the regulations governing end-of-life care.
On BC Bereavement Day this year PICA arranged it’s second annual Missing Women’s Memorial and ‘dove release’at the ‘Marker For Change’ at Thorton Park in Vancouver.
Globe & Mail Report on Small Business covers the FFA Campaign, and the Kearney Family Business
The FFA and the Professionals in Care Alliance arranged their first faith luncheon to begin to build a faith based taskforce to finally complete the reforms required to create a healthy funeral service regulatory environment.
October will see saw their first PR Campaign launch for the further five reforms, beginning with their call for new cemetery space being made available in the Lower Mainland, beginning with the Pickton Farm, which already has 69 women buried there. On BC Bereavement Day (November 14th) PICA arranged a memorial service as the gate of the farm, asking the Provincial Government to consider donating the land to PICA to become a new not-for-profit cemetery, with part of the proceeds going to care and support for families of the victims, and further funding allocated to fund university research into confronting and more adequately challenging violence against women.
Presentations and tours to healthcare workers, colleges and faith communities continue in effort to raise awareness over vital reforms required to ensure a healthy regulatory environment.
The FFA has expressed their deep frustration with the fact that as yet neither the law requiring funeral home ownership or the law requiring disclosure of location are being enforced.
BC Business covered the Independent FFA Campaign
Frank Stewart was invited to be keynote speaker at the Catholic Cemetery Association Convention held in Vancouver B.C., Canada that year. Mr. Crean challenged Mr. Stewart’s position on consolidators partnering with the Church communities especially with respect to operation of their cemeteries
