Abstract

WORKING TOGETHER: A DISCUSSION OF COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT PRACTICE

Fred Sadori & Sherrie Tingley

This workshop will explore the experience of a diverse group of stakeholders involved in the public participation initiative.

The Public Participation Project was established in October 2000. This initiative is funded by the City of Ottawa and delivered by the Coalition of Health and Resource Centres, administered on their behalf by Somerset West Community Health Centre in collaboration with Le Centre de Ressource Communautaire de la Basse-ville.

The project works to achieve a model that is inclusive, encourages meaningful participation, creates an environment conducive to empowerment, promotes ownership and partnership and supports people telling their stories and advocating in their own voice.

In order to be successful an initiative such as this must have buy-in from a diverse group of participants. The Public Participation initiative has enjoyed this buy-in. This workshop will explore the process experienced by, and the relationship between, a diverse range of participants from the least powerful to the most powerful.

Some of the themes that will be explored will include:

• Role of the coordinator as a catalyst
• The importance of understanding agency and who sets the agenda
• Authentic voice and power & its relationship to empowerment
• How the personal is political and internalized oppression
• Transformation as a process: possible, necessary and for all participants
• The importance of risk taking in liberation from rules, roles and regulation

Bios

Fred Sadori grew up in Montreal immersed in a French Catholic culture. He began his education later on in life in life completing a Masters of Social Work in 1997. During the last decade Fred has worked in various capacities as a front line worker in such areas as addictions, mental health and housing. Fred has worked as a researcher on a variety of projects involving marginalized populations. Fred has also been very actively involved in social policy and law reform activities.

Presently, Fred is working as a Public Participation Coordinator through the Coalition of Health and Resource Centres. Fred volunteers with the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation's (CERA) Eviction Prevention project and St-Luke's Lunch Club and Drop-In. Fred is a founding board member of the Provincial Income Security Advocacy Centre, a member of the Algonquin College Social Service Worker Advisory Board and a member of the Public Health Research Ethics Board in Ottawa.

Fred applies a structural approach based on his integration of front-line, policy and research work combining this approach with his life experiences that include; having lived on welfare, having been homeless, having experienced a personal battle with addiction and having experienced conflict with the law.

Sherrie Tingley is a long-time human rights, housing and anti-poverty activist. She is currently acting Executive Director of The Centre for Equality Rights and sits on the board of directors of the Canadian Council on Social Development. Her front-line work put her in daily contact with families who are facing losing their current housing or are without housing.

She joined CERA in 1993 as a board member and spent 1996 to 2000 as the board's chairperson. She has worked in the areas of poverty, women's issues, human rights and housing with groups such as the National Association of Women and the Law, The Canadian Auto Workers Community Development Group, Povnet, The Workfare Watch Project, The Georgian Bay Coalition for Social Justice and the Barrie Action Committee for Women.

From 1993 to 1995, she sat on the Ontario Minster of Housing's Roundtable on Social Housing, during the same period she sat on the founding Board of Directors of the College of Physiotherapists of Ontario. In addition to her involvement in social justice, she has spent time as a single mother, spent time on welfare, spent time as a mother without housing and has faced eviction and homelessness.

Other Participants in this workshop

Sonja Prakash is a student currently pursuing her Bachelor degree in Social Work at Carleton University. For the past two years she has been involved with the homeless or at risk of being homeless population of Ottawa, first as a student working in a drop-in centre, and now as a street outreach worker for Centre 507. Sonja has just completed a student placement with the public participation project, supervised by Fred Sadori. The project introduced her to a vast variety of community action groups, and she has just begun to 'get her feet wet' as a social activist. Sonja is currently working on putting together a video for the 'Feed the Kids AND Pay the Rent' campaign, a campaign started by a low-income activist group that is intent on raising the shelter allowance of the current assistance rates in Ontario. Sonja is set on continuing her career as a frontline worker, but is also extremely interested in social justice issues and the power of community capacity and action.

Bob Busby is an Anti-Poverty Activist living in Ottawa. Bob is a founding member of the Somerset West Action Network (SWAN). He helped launch the "Feed The Kids AND Pay The Rent" Campaign. Bob has been active in several other campaigns including the "Justice With Dignity" Remember Kimberly Rogers, Sudbury driven Campaign.

Bob is very interested and concerned with legislation such as Bill 128, mandatory drug testing, and all government policies that affect the poor and marginalized particularly in Ontario but throughout the world. Bob is a member of the advisory committee of the newly funded low-income newsletter. Bob volunteers several days a week at the Somerset West Community Health Centre where he works closely with the Public Participation Coordinator Fred Sadori. Bob is the co-chair of Ottawa Action on Poverty an umbrella organization that is composed of many of the local community action groups.

Bob has lived in Daly Co-op for 8 years and at Sawmill Creek Housing Co-op for 7 years. He has held many different roles within the co-op including the Board of Directors and the Chair of the Environmental & Recycling Committee. Bob is a member of the Newsletter Committee Daily Co-op and Chair of the Ad-Hoc Political Action Committee. Bob is a member of the founding board of the Canadian Housing Federation of Eastern Ontario that is now known as CHASEO.

Bob has been involved in political lobbying for social & co-op Housing at all levels of government as well as health, global and international human rights. Internationally Bob has been to Peru with Development & Peace where he met with social justice, anti-poverty and many other activists.

Jocelyne St Jean is the General Manager of the People Services Department for the City of Ottawa. In her role as General Manager she oversees a Department that encompasses Public Health and Long Term Care, Community Funding and Development, Child Care, Park and Recreation Programming, Arts and Culture, Employment and Financial Assistance, Housing and Libraries. People Services, with over 3,000 employees, is responsible for most of the elements needed to sustain and improve the quality of life of city residents.

In the past Jocelyne was Director of Community Services for the City of Ottawa, leading an organization of 1,100 staff in the provision of family health, recreation, culture and childcare services. She has also held the positions of Director of Strategic and Operational Support for the Social Services Department of the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, Director of Planning for the Montfort Hospital, and Management Consultant at the Ottawa General Hospital. Jocelyne holds a bachelor of Commerce (marketing) and a Master of Health Administration from the University of Ottawa.

Over the past 15 years Jocelyne has held a number of volunteer board positions for Hébergement Renaissance Inc., le Conseil d'école Jeanne-Sauvé, le Centre parascolaire Alpha 3-12. In her spare time, Jocelyne holds a second job as a proud soccer mom of 3.

Jack McCarthy has been the Executive Director of the Somerset West Community Health Centre in Ottawa since 1989. In 2000, he took a 15 month leave of absence to work as a senior policy analyst in the Primary Health Care Division of Health Canada.

He is currently an Executive Board member of the Canadian Alliance of Community Health Centre Associations (CACHCA), a national organization representing 250 community health centres in Canada. Jack is Co-chair of the 14 member Coalition of Community Health and Resource Centres of Ottawa and Co-chair of the Primary Health Care Work Group for the Association of Ontario Health Centres (AOHC).

A native of Ottawa, Jack completed his Masters in Social Work (MSW) in 1977 at Wilfrid Laurier University, majoring in community development and social planning. Upon graduation, he worked at the Children's Aid Society in Ottawa, and as a community worker at Pincrest Queensway Health and Community Services. He was the founding Executive Director in 1984 of Carlington Health and Community Services, another CHC in Ottawa.

Jack is married to Sharon D'Arcy, a practising social worker. They are parents of two very active teenage daughters.

Candice Beale is an anti poverty activist who is actively involved with several different groups in an attempt to alleviate the effects of poverty. She is the co-chair of the Ontario Social Safety Network and of Ottawa Action on Poverty. She is also the founder and chair of Poverty Awareness Week in Ottawa, and belongs to the city of Ottawa's Poverty Issues Advisory Committee.

Candice is very committed to the grass roots approach to solving problems, believing that the people who are most affected by a situation are also the ones best able to put forth workable solutions, and that people living in poverty need to be more involved in the processes that impact their lives.

Candice also works as a program officer with the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation. Working with a human rights organization has proven to be very educational and rewarding for her, especially when it is evident that someone has benefited from CERA's programs.

Bob Crook graduated from St-Patrick's College in Ottawa with a Bachelor of Social Science in 1967 and from Carleton University School of Social Work with a MSW degree in 1975. He worked for several years for The Youth Services Bureau (Ottawa) as a community worker with young people in trouble with the law and with young people with drug addictions, particularly "speed". He also helped to organize a province wide organization called The Committee for the Abolition of Training Schools (CATS) which succeeded in influencing the provincial government to discontinue its program of youth jails in Ontario.

Bob spent 15 years working for The Community Resource Centers Branch, Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton (RMOC) Social Services Department as Co-ordinator of The Lowertown and Pinecrest Community Resource Centers. These two jobs involved:

• Coordination of existing community services under the guidance of an elected Community Board and the development of new services as needs were defined by residents in each community
• Support for the development of a wide network of Community Resource and Health Centers in Ottawa Carleton
• Community economic development

In 1990, Bob began working in a series of Administrative positions with The Social Services Department, RMOC. In particular he held Director level positions in The Income Maintenance and Employment Program Divisions.

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