Founded in 1995, Canuck Place Children’s Hospice (CPCH) was North America’s first free-standing children’s hospice. CPCH states that it is BC’s recognized pediatric palliative care provider under the Child Health BC Tiers of Service Framework. CPCH operates two hospices in Vancouver and Abbotsford and follows a family-centred care philosophy. It provides medical respite, pain and symptom management, a 24-hour phone consultation service, art, music and recreation therapy, end-of-life care, and grief and bereavement counselling to children with progressive, life-threatening illness and their families.

CPCH’s in-patient palliative care program (the Canuck Place program) cares for children between 0 and 19 years old. Referrals to Canuck Place are made through BC Children's Hospital. Canuck Place is free for families – costs are covered by provincial government funding and Canadian donors.

Through the clinical care program, including counselling, CPCH helps families cope with challenging situations. The program takes a client-centred approach, respecting the child and family’s wishes. Counselling programs include one-on-one and family counselling, bereavement, support groups, camps, and music therapy.

In F2021, CPCH provided in-patient care for over 800 children and families. CPCH’s in-patient program provided 2,042 patient bed days and hosted 1,550 family members for overnight medical respite in F2021. Additionally, Canuck Place increased in-home patient care by 31% from F2020 to F2021. CPCH provided 2,604 counselling sessions (up 56% from F2020) and 520 music therapy sessions in F2021.

Ci consolidated Canuck Place Children’s Hospice with Canuck’s Place Children’s Hospice Foundation using the Foundation’s T3010 CRA filings. While the operating charity’s F2021 audited financial statements were available at the time of this profile update, the Foundation’s F2021 T3010 filing was not. As such, Ci has only presented financial information as recent as F2020.

In F2020, Canuck Place Children’s Hospice received total donations of $9.9m. The charity also received government funding of $7.2m, representing 40% of total revenues. Administrative costs are 10% of revenues (less investment income) and fundraising costs are 41% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 51%. For every dollar donated, 49 cents go to the cause, which is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

CPCH has $20.9m in funding reserves, which could cover 221% or two years and two months of annual program costs.

CPCH reports using external fundraisers as part of its fundraising activities in its most recent F2020 T3010 CRA filing. It reported paying external fundraisers $660k ($704k in F2019) but did not report how much the fundraisers collected.

This report is an update that has been sent to Canuck Place Children’s Hospice for review. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 27, 2021 by Sydney Olexa.