Family and Community Support Services has invested $60,000 in grants to help local preventative programs this year.

Manager of Community Support Services with the Town of High River Shelley Koot says the FCSS grant program has a mandate from the province that focuses on preventative social services and early intervention.

"We want to make sure that we're catching issues before they get bigger. Ideally before they happen at all, but often times we're more that early intervention piece. As well, we want to make sure that we're kind of not only ahead of the problem but we're really strength based focused. So, we're looking at working with people's strengths and working with what's working well as opposed to maybe what's not working well."

She says FCSS works to improve social well-being by increasing awareness for social issues, connecting people in the community, and improving coping skills.

"Looking at increasing, sometimes it's awareness around social issues, sometimes it's increasing volunteer opportunities. So we know that residents if they volunteer in a community they're going to feel more connected to their community. We also want to make sure that'we're helping people increase their coping skills. So, if you're going through a difficult time, and you can gain some skills on how to handle those challenges and learning some advocacy skills, then we try to increase that as well."

Koot says the main project of the High River FCSS Advisory Board is deciding which programs receive grants, and they diligently work to support local social services.

She says everyone involved in the grant decisions takes pride in seeing the great things that can be done with these contributions.

"This is the project that we work towards throughout the year, that they get to make these decisions. We have a council member that sits on our board as well. Our council rep was actually Emile Blokland, but he was out of town this time so Cathy Couey sat in and it was great to have her back for a couple of months. And they too, they take great pride in not only making great decisions, but actually meeting the people behind the work too and seeing their passion."

Here's a list of the FCSS grant allocations as presented to High River Town Council:

$ 6,000 for Big Brothers and Big Sisters: Mentoring in High River
$ 5,000 for Boys and Girls Club
$ 2,500 for Foothills Community Immigrant Services
$ 4,500 for Foothills Country Hospice Society: Volunteer Program
$ 4,500 for Foothills Fetal Alcohol Society
$ 9,000 for Foothills SNAPS: Family Support Programs
$ 4,500 for Foothills Victims Services: Volunteer Program
$ 8,000 for Literacy for Life: Community Family Literacy Project
$ 500 for Junior Achievement
$ 7,750 for Rowan House: Branches Community Education Program
$ 7,750 for Wild Rose Community Connections