Mark Miller, CEO
We’re an organization that is constantly doing things and making things happen, and I think it is important for us to take the opportunity as the 2018-19 year comes to an end to reflect on and celebrate what we have achieved as we work towards our vision of a safe, healthy, and inclusive community for all.
Something that I’m particularly proud of from the past year is the addition of our new Indigenous programming at what was Tims Manor – Miyàq’elhà:wetawt. Our team has been assessing how we can start to bring Indigenous programming into our organization in a meaningful way for quite some time now, and further embedding Indigenous programming at the JHS is something that we want to continue to do moving forward. Another significant feature of our 2018-19 year has been the ways in which we have started to look at how we meet the needs of our staff across the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley– which includes adding office space in Surrey and starting to add office space in Abbotsford. Expanding our staff team’s presence across the region embeds us within communities in a much stronger way and allows us to serve individual needs in the community.
Our recruitment and retention have been a focus for the organization, and because of the growth we have experienced, we have come up with solid practices that allow us to bring amazing people on our team. We have worked hard to develop value-based processes that ensure we add people to our organization that are determined, accountable, person-centered, inclusive, and collaborative, and have a genuine desire to support people experiencing barriers so they can achieve greater independence. Our core values have really become a foundation of who we are and what we do. Our values are the piece that keep us focused at times, and allow us to find a home base.
As a non-profit organization, we play a strong role in identifying and bridging gaps, both within our organization and in the communities that we serve. We’ve done a good job of that this year, and is something we need to do more of. There continues to be more and more need for support services within the communities we serve, and while we continue to grow at a very fast pace to meet these needs, they are growing too.
I’ve been with the JHS for 4 years and I think what inspires me continues to be the things that I came for. While our mission continues to be similar in some historic way to what it’s always been, what I’ve found within the organization is the willingness to want to do more, to want to do better. We want to continue to grow as an agency and as people and I find this very exciting. When you’re seeing people around you doing so much, it continues to make you want to do more as well.
I continue to be inspired by the work that our front line staff do. I probably say this often enough, but I have in some ways the easiest job in the organization. I get to talk about the work that others do, and I’m very proud of that and very thankful for that opportunity.
Mark Miller, CEO