our people
Joyce Locht - President
Joyce lives in Vancouver today but, having grown up in the prairies, spent most of her adult years in Winnipeg, where she and her husband raised three children, now young adults. Since becoming a mother of three children, she has spent many years as a student - "trying to maintain sanity." Joyce has a nursing background, having graduated from training at age nineteen. After completing a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology at Trinity Western University in Langley in 2000, Joyce worked for several years for a Christian not-for-profit agency - M2/W2 Association-as the coordinator of a volunteer-based program supporting overburdened mothers with babies and preschool children in Chilliwack. Joyce is currently a part-time student at Regent College in Vancouver. She is particularly interested in motherhood: maternal-infant mental health, how motherhood shapes women's lives, and most recently, the experience of being a mother to a child with addiction.
Stan Fraser - Director
Stan has been going to the Parents Forever support group since the first meeting eight years ago, at which time two of his four daughters had already been living through a decade of addictions and abusive relationships.
Also the father of three sons, Stan is the grandfather of thirteen. He refers to one granddaughter as "very special" because as a newborn fourteen years ago, she went to Sunny hill Hospital to detoxify from drugs.
Stan knows that "It really hurts to stand in a back alley in skid row and watch your beautiful daughter stick a needle in her vein, knowing there is nothing you can do but grieve. It hurts when you visit your daughter in jail every week and you feel guilty because you're happy she is there rather than with her addicted husband."
Stan's record of community service includes the presidency of the Skeena Terrace Tenant Association and also of the Vancouver and District Public Housing Tenant Association. In connection with his work, he has given leadership, also as president, of a non-profit labour co-op and has been a representative on the Human Resources Community Resources Board.
Says Stan of his election to the FGTA Board, "I hope I can now go from grief to taking action to help other parents to prevent or survive the kinds of hard things that my family has been through."
Patsy Thorpe - Director
Patsy has been a registered nurse in Vancouver for over 30 years. She is currently a British Columbia Nurses' Union steward at B.C. Children's and Women's Health Centre. She and her husband Bill's middle daughter, Alexandra, was a heroin addict. Their whole family has experienced the terrible grief that accompanies caring for an addict while trying to keep her safe until she gets treatment. Alexandra died of an overdose in 2002. Patsy is working towards increasing support for more harm reduction and treatment facilities.
Catherine Kerr - Director
Catherine is President of the Society for Technical Communication, West Coast chapter, and the website content manager for FGTA. She accepted a Board nomination because of the insight, grace, gutsiness and sense of humour she encountered in every interaction with FGTA directors.
She lives in Mount Pleasant, where the community organization named her Volunteer of the Year in 2009. She is the recipient of a Neighbourhood Projects Small Grant for a demonstration community garden and tends eighteen other plots. Bringing grief to weeds, and action to streetscape enrichment, is her joy.
Catherine's university degree in secondary school teaching jumpstarted a career in instructional design, publishing, and managing communication campaigns focused on societal objectives. Her first job was child-care work with adolescents, and as a prevention program manager at ICBC, she worked with school committees dedicated to safety on the road, especially for young drivers. Her lifelong interest in and concern for young people align well with the cause of drug harm reduction.
Catherine is particularly interested in maintaining and improving the impact of the FGTA website and in using social media to help bring the organization to the attention of those who need it.
