Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list inclu...
By Caitlyn Lepp
Saskatoon’s Frances Morrison Library is providing social services to people who need them with the opening of its new Outreach Support walk-up window.
The window is the first of its kind at a Saskatchewan library.
Located on the east side of the building along Fourth Avenue, the window is to give patrons who need help the assistance they need to find the necessary resources.
Amanda Lepage, the senior manager of welcoming initiatives for the Saskatoon Public Library (SPL), says the outreach window allows patrons to get help at a safe physical distance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lepage said the library has had registered outreach workers working at the facility since 2018.
“We were getting a lot of questions in the library about things like where to find emergency food hampers and ‘Where do I go in this crisis situation?’ ” Lepage said. “Library folks are experts on information, but not necessarily that type of information, so we decided to incorporate the service of social workers.”
Some people don’t have access to cellphones or computers and contacting those who may need the outreach services started to become a challenge once lockdowns happened as a result of COVID.
When patrons come to the window, they are given a map to find food, shelter and other resources they could not find on their own.
The SPL received a grant from the Emergency Community Response Fund being offered through the federal government to begin construction of the new outreach window.
“It was a great opportunity to get our outreach workers in contact with people in a safe way. We thought of a way for people to access services even with the window closed,” Lepage said.
The outreach workers help anyone go through processes they don’t understand and provide resources for people who didn’t know were available to them.
“Anything related to employment, income, food, shelter, mental health — we really help in anything … We just want to help support their goals and help them to where they want to go and the things that they need to do to live a great life,” Lepage said.
“We make sure no one gets left behind. Our goal is to help other people reach their goals and sometimes it means helping them access the basic needs like where to find employment and housing.”
The outreach service window is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., but the library hopes to change to Monday to Friday soon.
