Moving Forward Through Partnerships

OUR HISTORY
Distress Centres across Ontario are community based organizations who receive the majority of funding from the communities they serve.  Over 2,300 volunteers staff these Centres’ primary service, a free, anonymous and confidential telephone service providing emotional support, crisis intervention, suicide prevention and linkages to emergency help when necessary.

1967
Gordon Winch, along with Jim Fisk, Bill Kilbourne, and several others, started the first Distress Centre in Toronto.  Gordon Winch, working as a minister in area pubs, recognized how desperate people were for caring listening, and how healing that was.  Based on the model of listening started by Britain’s Samaritans organization in 1953, the ‘befriending’ style of volunteer telephone services takes hold throughout the province.

1971
Ontario Association of Telephone Distress Centres is formed by five Ontario Distress Centres.  They came together to share information and discuss ways to enhance their services. 

1972
The Ontario Association of Distress Centres began the tradition of holding annual training conferences for staff and volunteers of Member Centres.  Over the years these conferences have been held at various locations throughout the province.

1980
The fifteen members of the Association understood the value of best practices.  An Accreditation Standards program was developed in the areas of administration, training, ethics, service delivery and community integration.  The program was revised over the 90’s and was funded by a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

1982
The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care recognizes the importance of Distress Centres and DCO by providing the Association with operational funding.  The following year, the Association is incorporated as a charitable organization.

1992
The organization starts to be known as Distress Centres Ontario or DCO but continues to keep its original name for legal purposes.  The membership of the organization includes twenty-one member centres throughout the province.

1997
The Association has a membership of 25 community based Distress Centres throughout Ontario.  These centres logged over 110,000 volunteer hours engaged with callers while answering over 250,000 calls in that year alone.  The DCO Management Information Systems Programs continues to capture caller trends and changes, providing a basis for applied research.

2003
September 10.  First Annual World Suicide Prevention Day held, jointly organized by the World Health Organization and the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).  This day focuses attention on the problem of suicide and is a call to action across the world.  Many Distress Centres use this commemorative day to raise community awareness throughout the province.

2004
Distress Centres Ontario’s membership reviews its organizational structure and develops a long term Strategic Plan (to 2008) and revises it’s Mission, Vision and Values statements.

2006
The inaugural sessions of THE PARTNERSHIP TOOLKIT series of Educational Forums in held in Niagara Falls.  This semi-annual gathering of member centres and partner groups and agencies provides an excellent forum for networking and educating staff, volunteers and community members about issues related to mental health, volunteers and telephone support services.

2006
The first issue of the electronic newsletter DCO eNews + Views hits the electronic airwaves.  Currently being distributed monthly, the newsletter includes profiles of the services of member centres, information of interest to members, partners and volunteers and notices of upcoming events.

2007

  • www.dcontario.org receives a facelift. The modern format provides valuable information regarding services and easy access with the GET HELP section.
  • Two sessions of THE PARTNERSHIP TOOLKIT, in London and Markham, ON were very well attended by staff, volunteers and community partners.
  • The Education Committee is reviewing various methods of providing training and learning opportunities to the membership.
  • Suicide prevention and intervention ASIST training sponsored by DCO is provided to volunteers and staff at six member centres throughout the various regions in the province.

2008

  • Association members participate in Visioning Exercises and Strategic Planning to direct the distress line movement’s future and prepare Strategic Priorities to 2011.
  • The Volunteer Management Committee conducts and reports on several volunteer management surveys, travels throughout the province to conduct volunteer focus groups with centre volunteers, and provides analysis and suggestions regarding the state of volunteerism in this sector.
  • The Accreditation Working Group completes a detailed review of various accreditation partners and explores funding opportunities to support sector wide accreditation.
  • The Statistics, Information and Outcome Measures Working Group, reviews the reporting, information gathering and sharing abilities of the association memberships and supports efforts to coordinate reporting at the provincial level.