Abstracts & Bios Session C 7 Concurrent Sessions Friday June 17, 2005 10:30 - 12:00 C1. Paper presentations Fault lines: father absence and mother blaming in child welfare policies Susan Strega, Leslie Brown, Marilyn Callahan, Lena Dominelli, Christopher Walmsley Abstract Despite contemporary discourse about involved fatherhood, and the move to gender neutral language in social policy, child welfare continues to fail to engage with men. Alternatively, mothers remain the focus of most child welfare activity but receive little support. Drawing on four significant data sources (a review of child welfare literature as it pertains to fathering; a pilot study of child welfare files; research about child welfare policy, practice and discourse when men beat mothers; and research about risk assessment), we offer an analysis of the ways in which social and child welfare policies contribute to father absence and mother blaming. We present imaginative ways to forge responsive and equitable policies and practices to more effectively respond to the needs of children. We invite workshop participants to join with us in this task. Biographies Susan Strega is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba. She has published in the areas of social policy, child welfare and sex work. She has just co-edited a book with Leslie Brown, "Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous and Anti-oppressive Approaches", available from CSPI. Leslie Brown, Associate Professor and Director of the University of Victoria School of Social Work, is currently researching grandmothers raising grandchildren, fathering in child welfare and Aboriginal child welfare in BC. She has just co-edited a book with Susan Strega titled "Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous and Anti-oppressive Approaches." Marilyn Callahan, a professor Emeritus at the School of Social Work at the University of Victoria, is presently engaged in three studies focussing on the experiences of grandmothers, mothers and fathers in child welfare. She has published extensively on child welfare policy and practice. She is a member of the Board of Accreditation of Canadian Schools of Social Work. Lena Dominelli is Director of the Centre for International Social and Community Development at the University of Southampton and President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work, 1996-2004. She is an experienced researcher and educator and has published widely in the fields of social work, sociology and social policy. Christopher Walmsley chairs the BSW Program at Thompson Rivers University (formerly University College of the Cariboo). His book "Protecting Aboriginal Children" is being published by UBC Press in 2005. He is also working on a collection on the history of child and family welfare in British Columbia. Forging social futures: Illuminating the interaction of housing and risk assessment in child protection Marylin Callahan, Karen Swift, Henry Parada Abstract Although adequate housing is a central issue for families, its importance has long been overlooked in child protection. However, changes in housing and child welfare policies in the last decade have exacerbated this issue, making it increasingly likely that individual parents will be held accountable for the unavailability of suitable, affordable housing. This paper is based upon an analysis of housing policies and risk assessment in child welfare. Our study focuses upon how the process of risk assessment unfolds in child protection, including literature and document reviews and interviews with policy makers, workers and parents. It illustrates how policies work to render social problems such as unaffordable housing into personal issues such as inadequate parents. Social change requires more than proposing policy reforms, although some of these will be identified. It also means demonstrating how everyday work processes in one policy arena can reproduce, legitimize and perhaps transform the appearance of problems in another. Biographies Marilyn Callahan, a professor Emeritus at the School of Social Work at the University of Victoria, is presently engaged in three studies focussing on the analyzing current child welfare policies and practices including risk assessment, kinship care and the involvement of fathers. She has published extensively on child welfare policy and practice. She is a member of the Board of Accreditation of Canadian Schools of Social Work. Karen Swift is the author of Manufacturing ‘Bad Mothers’: A Critical Perspective on Child Neglect. Her recent research is on risk assessment in child welfare. Ontario perspectives on this issue are published in Volume 19 of the Journal of Law and Social Policy in an article entitled “Child Welfare Reform: Protecting Children or Policing the Poor?” She is presently the Director of the School of Social Work at York University. Henry Parada teaches Social Work at Ryerson University. He worked with a wide variety of child and youth protection and mental health teams both as a front-line social worker and supervisor. He was also involved with Family Reunification Programs working with adolescents and their families who were experiencing separation due to immigration and foster home placements. Proposition d’encadrement juridique du commerce équitable : pour éviter qu’une philosophie de commerce ne devienne qu’un simple outil de marketing Aude Tremblay Abstract Fondé sur des bases d’équité et de solidarité, le commerce équitable constitue une alternative au système commercial mondial. L’engouement des consommateurs à son égard et de ce fait, l’émergence de produits équitables dans les marchés ont conduit à la nécessité de créer des mécanismes permettant leur différenciation et la légitimation de la plus-value qui leur est accordée. En raison de l’intérêt commercial que représente ce type de produits, il semble légitime de se questionner à savoir si la mention équitable correspond réellement à une façon distincte de faire ou si elle constitue plutôt un simple outil de commercialisation. L’analyse de la situation canadienne actuelle soulève d’importantes lacunes au niveau des mécanismes juridiques en place afin d’assurer que les objectifs du commerce équitable soient rencontrés. Il s’ensuit un risque, non seulement pour le consommateur, mais aussi pour le commerce équitable en soi. Devant ce constat, nous proposons un nouvel encadrement législatif comme moyen de solution. Biographies Aude Tremblay est avocate au Barreau du Québec. En 2003, elle a entrepris une maîtrise en droit portant sur l’environnement à l’Université Laval sous la direction de la professeure Paule Halley. Elle travaille actuellement pour la Chaire de recherche du Canada en droit de l’environnement. Marie-Claude Desjardins est avocate au Barreau du Québec. Après avoir obtenu un baccalauréat de droit civil et de common law à l’Université McGill, elle a entrepris en 2003 une maîtrise en droit sous la direction de Prof. Sophie Lavallée à l’Université Laval. Elle consacre présentement ses recherches au droit de l’environnement. C2. Paper presentations Voices from the mineshaft Sue Rickards Abstract Living in poverty is like being trapped in a mineshaft, and government policy is frequently a major obstacle to escape. Since 1997 Saint John’s Urban Core Support Network has been tracking the impact of the province’s social policies on women in poverty in New Brunswick. UCSN’s new publication, “Responding to the Voices of Poverty - 6 Years Later,” updates the issues of poverty and policy, identifies strategies for poverty reduction, and describes barriers to the work of community-based organizations. It proposes recommendations for principles, policies and practices which can help women break free of the rubble which embeds them in the poverty cycle and join the mainstream. This paper presents the research and results of UCSN’s latest tracking project and provides evidence of the success of the approach outlined in UCSN’s recommendations. It offers a unified, intersectoral perspective on social policy development. Biography Sue Rickards has worked with UCSN on its Women in Poverty project since it began. Her experience is primarily in experiential learning with marginalized communities, policy development, rural youth issues, and writing. She occasionally teaches at UNB in the Department of Adult Education and Renaissance College. It’s the little things that count: Women provisioning to sustain life Stephanie Baker Collins, Elaine Porter, Sheila Neysmith, Marge Reitsma-Street Abstract Provisioning, a different approach to thinking about women=s work, is used to explore innovative strategies economically marginalized women use to gather and distribute the resources needed for people to survive and flourish. Data will be presented from a study of the provisioning work of women living on low or precarious incomes in three Canadian cities. These women build a Acomplex life-sustaining web@ (Haylett, 2003) through sharing care and resources across household lines, provisioning through community groups, provisioning through friendship networks and self-provisioning. The work of material provision cannot be separated from the work of caring relationships. Welfare reform language which sees everything in terms of economic exchange (work for welfare) misses the contribution to social development made by provisioning relationships. Policy approaches which do not recognize provisioning relationships threaten to undermine them. This paper will explore what supports and constrains the provisioning work of women including state rules for claims making and the sometimes contradictory role of non-profit organizations. Biographies Stephanie Baker Collins, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, York University. She has published in the areas of social policy and participatory methods in poverty research. She has an extensive background in social policy analysis and community based research with economically marginalized groups. Elaine Porter, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont. She specializes in the Sociology of Family and Human Development. Her past research includes a study of women’s workload as they managed the effects of their spouse’s permanent lay-off in a single-industry mining town. Her most recent publication concerns the obstacles that successful women entrepreneurs in India have faced and the strategies they have employed to overcome them. Sheila Neysmith, DSW, is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. She has published extensively on how policies affect women’s caring labour. Her books include: Restructuring Caring Labour: Discourse, State Practice & Everyday Life (Oxford), Critical Issues for Future Social Work Practice with Aging Persons (Columbia) and Women’s Caring: Feminist perspectives on Social Welfare with C. Bains and P. Evans (Oxford). Her current research documents the types of work that women do outside of family and paid employment and how these relate to women’s citizenship claims. Marge Reitsma-Street, PhD, is a Professor in Studies in Policy and Practice at the Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria. She is the Principal Investigator of the "Women, Provisioning, and Community" Research Project. Reitsma-Street has published in the areas of social work, social and public policy, child and youth studies, health, criminology and community action research. C3. Paper presentations Local Solutions: Exploring the local implementation of Ontario Works Ernie Lightman, Andrew Mitchell, Dean Herd Abstract In recent years traditional welfare settlements have been fundamentally restructured. Where welfare states were founded on principles of universality, needs-based eligibility, and rights and entitlements, these various workfare replacements reflect a new consensus around market-based selectivity, social contracts and rights and responsibilities. Significantly, these transformations also reveal a shift in policy design and delivery away from the national scale and towards local “innovation” and “flexibility." Within this context, this paper explores the implementation of Ontario Works at the local or community level. It draws on key informant interviews, focus groups with front line workers and observation of welfare recipients’ information and employment sessions in four sites across Ontario to explore how provincial goals are understood, translated and ‘made’ into policy at the local level, where policy becomes “real.” As well as establishing a more concrete understanding of what reform means 'on the ground' in Ontario, the study also provides a lens through which national and international transformations in social assistance programs can be re-examined. Biographies Ernie Lightman, PhD is Principal Investigator on the Social Assistance in the New Economy (SANE) Project. A Professor of Social Policy at the University of Toronto, his research focuses on the interplay of economic policy and social policy within a market context. He has published widely, and is the author of Social Policy in Canada (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2003) Andrew Mitchell is Project Coordinator of the SANE research program. He has been a professional social policy researcher for over 15 years and has extensive expertise in quantitative and qualitative research, policy analysis, advocacy and public education, and possesses an in-depth knowledge of topics such as fiscal policy, welfare reform, workfare, income security and unemployment. Dean Herd, PhD is Research Associate on the SANE program. Over the past eight years, his research has focused upon critical and comparative policy analysis, with a particular interest in welfare reforms in Canada, the UK and the US, international policy transfer and qualitative research methods. Urban poverty in Canada: The role of employment Spyridoula Tsouklasas, Nathasha Macdonald Abstract Despite Canadians’ desire for a socially inclusive society, there are still many individuals and groups being excluded from full participation in their communities as a result of poverty. While the total number of persons living in poverty fell slightly between 1995 and 2000, rates are still unacceptably high for a rich and prosperous country like Canada. And these high poverty rates are particularly disconcerting, given the strength of the Canadian economy over this period. Traditionally, a connection to the labour force has been seen as a deterrent to poverty. Recently, however, that has not been the case for a significant proportion of the population, especially in urban areas where the majority of Canada’s poor are concentrated. Using data from the 2001 Census, linkages between labour market characteristics and poverty will be explored for 27 Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) in Canada. Similarities and differences among cities in the CMAs will be examined, and comparisons made in the employment characteristics and poverty rates between urban cores and the remainder of the CMAs. Biographies Spyridoula Tsoukalas is a Senior Research Associate at the CCSD, involved in both qualitative and quantitative research. Her work has focused on issues surrounding social indicators, cultural diversity, social inclusion, legal aid, and the well-being of families and children. Publications she has authored or co-authored include: And Justice for All; Riding the Technology Wave: Experiences of Adult Literacy Students and Teachers in Ontario; Social Cohesion in Canada: Possible Indicators; and The Personal Security Index. Ms. Tsoukalas is currently working on a major study of urban poverty in which she will be developing poverty profiles for large urban areas in Canada and analyzing differences in the demographic and labour market characteristics of cities. Ms. Tsoukalas has degrees in Political Science and Public Administration from McGill and Carleton Universities. Nathasha Macdonald joined the research staff at the CCSD in June 2004. Previously, Ms. Macdonald worked as an instructor of economics and quantitative methods at the College of the Rockies. She is adept at using a variety of research methods and is familiar with many Statistics Canada databases including the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and the Census. She recently completed data analysis for Campaign 2000’s 2004 report card on child poverty, One Million Too Many: Implementing Solutions to Child Poverty in Canada. She is currently working on the CCSD’s large study of urban poverty in Canada, a follow-up to the 2000 report, Urban Poverty in Canada: A Statistical Profile. Ms. Macdonald has a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Victoria. The Community Employment Innovation Project (CEIP): Improving social inclusion through community capacity building David Gyarmati, Darrell Kyte, Daniel Bunbury Abstract This workshop will review the status of the Community Employment Innovation Project (CEIP) - a long-term research and demonstration project designed to test an alternative form of income support for the unemployed, which aims to encourage employment while supporting local community development. The workshop will begin with an introduction to the CEIP program model, the multi-methods research design, and a review of results from the implementation phase of the project. The discussion will focus on the lessons learned around local governance in the project, including the processes by which communities were engaged, how they organized and formed inclusive representative decision-making structures, and mobilized their resources to develop community projects. Biographies David Gyarmati is a Senior Research Associate with the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC). Prior to managing CEIP research, Mr. Gyarmati worked on a number of SRDC projects studying the use of financial incentives and other supports to help disadvantaged Canadians make the transition to work. Mr. Gyarmati’s professional history includes both academic research and operations management experience. Prior to coming to SRDC, he worked with the Centre for Research in Economic Social Policy (CRESP) and Human Resources Development Canada (SRDC). Mr. Gyarmati completed a Master of Arts in Economics at the University of British Columbia specializing in Labour Economics and Applied Econometrics. Darrell Kyte is a researcher with the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC). Since joining SRDC in 2000 he has been a member of the Community Employment Innovation Project (CEIP) research team, performing a variety of qualitative and quantitative research tasks. Darrell is also a part time lecturer and distance education instructor with the Department of Political Science at the University College of Cape Breton. Prior to accepting a position with SRDC, he was employed with New Dawn Enterprises, a community development organization. Mr. Kyte holds a Master of Public Administration from Queen’s University. Daniel Bunbury has been a Research Associate with SRDC in the Sydney office since 1999. He carries research duties connected with the Community Employment Innovation Project (CEIP). Previously, Mr. Bunbury was a Project Manager for the Nova Scotia Electronic Democracy Forum, Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking at the University College of Cape Breton and a Research Associate for the Community Economic Development Institute at the University College of Cape Breton. Mr. Bunbury holds a Ph.D. in History from Dalhousie University. C4. Paper presentations Funding matters: Directions for funding reform within the nonprofit and voluntary sector Katherine Scott Abstract Nonprofit and voluntary sector organizations in Canada are groaning under the strain of a new funding regime that seriously impedes their ability to perform vital work on behalf of millions of Canadians. Funding Matters, a study published by the Canadian Council on Social Development, chronicles how a decade of restructuring has changed the way in which organizations generate resources and sustain themselves in what has become a competitive and volatile financial environment. Organizations are struggling with higher levels of financial uncertainty and volatility than a decade ago, even as they have sought – largely successfully – to diversify and augment their revenue base. The contradictions of the current funding regime beg the question: where to? The basic argument of this paper is that change or innovation at the level of the individual organization is not enough. Efforts on the part of individual organizations to rebalance the mix of funding sources and/or financial mechanisms may well result in greater financial diversification and more effective management. But it is as important to reform existing funding vehicles and structures in order to build an “enabling fiscal environment”. The paper will discuss different funding reform initiatives across Canada are attempting to change funding practices and the prospects for their success. Biography: Katherine Scott is the Vice President of Research with the Canadian Council on Social Development in Ottawa. Her employment at the CCSD builds on past experience in government, in the university, and with other research organizations, working on issues of social and economic inclusion as they affect women, children, and families. Her book on funding for the nonprofit and voluntary sector in Canada, Funding Matters: The Impact of Canada’s New Funding Regime on Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations, was published in June 2003. She holds degrees in political science from Queen’s University and York University. Whose responsibility is it anyway? –The funding game Pat Carlson Abstract To demonstrate the vicious circle of “whose responsibility is it anyway”, the Executive Director of the Fredericton Emergency Shelters would like to make a presentation to highlight how non-profits and its clients are caught in the cross fire and how without community support and fund raising, the needs of homeless citizens in this community would not be addressed. Critical issues of core funding remain high on the needs of any organization that is going to have sustainable resources. Laws need to change so that Foundations can and will support core funding and governments will need to acknowledge that without this change in thinking we will continue to lose our support systems as more agency workers and volunteers burn out from playing the funding game. Biography Pat Carlson is a graduate of Teachers College, STU and recently from the Negotiation and Conflict Management Program at Dalhousie University. She is currently the Executive Director of two homeless shelters, where she has worked for the last nine years. In 2003 Pat was awarded the “Women of the Year Award” by the Beta Sigma Phi . She sits on the Advisory Board for the UNB Faculty of Nursing’s, Community Health Clinic. Pat is currently a biweekly columnist with the Daily Gleaner, writing on the broader issues surrounding the homeless. Her column appears every second Thursday and is called “Consider This.” A community based model: “Voices from outside the box” Jim Christopher Abstract: The current neo-liberal drive towards alternative service delivery has led government policies to reduce/cut funding levels to the non-profit sector, resulting in a greater downloading of services to communities, and straining the capacity of many community organizations to the limit. As a result, community project/program coordinators, front line workers, and volunteers are faced with many new challenges, and are under continued pressure to find alternative resources and volunteers to sustain and initiate grass root community based programs/projects. Presently, local forums and processes do not effectively report or address the unique challenges/barriers experienced by frontline/community workers, and volunteers working at the grassroots level in low-income communities. Grassroots community workers and volunteers feel isolated, overwhelmed, unsupported, and underrepresented in challenging the direction and adverse effects of current neo-liberal social policies. This presentation will focus on a process being undertaken by an informal network of local frontline/community workers and low income communities to develop and formalize a community model, a model that will accommodate and support community based initiatives, workers and volunteers, and actively advocate and act on the root challenges/barriers facing low income communities. Biographies: Jim Christopher, a member and Executive Director of Community Workshop Inc., a local non-profit incorporated social development agency, has worked in the field of community /social development work since completing the BSW program at STU in 2002. Jim has actively participated in supporting and coordinating programs/projects in low -income communities. Currently, Jim is involved with the First Nations Capacity Building Committee, working with aboriginal organizations, program coordinators, and volunteers in First Nation communities. Miguel LeBlanc, B.S.W., R.W.S. is a member of Community Workshop Inc. Miguel has been working in the field of community development since graduating from the Social Work Program at St. Thomas University in 2003. Miguel, the past Executive Director of the FAS/E Network, is currently working as the Community Coordinator with the New Brunswick Advisory Council on Youth (NBACY). Miguel’s work with the NBACY is to engage, mobilize, and develop grassroots solutions with the youth. Miguel is also involved with several local and provincial Non Profit Organizations. Les groupes communautaires et les programmes d’assistance financière Richard Gauthier Abstract: Dans le cadre de la conférence portant sur Les groupes communautaires et les programmes d’assistance financière-une analyse comparative de cinq provinces canadiennes nous dévoilerons les résultats de notre étude. Nous souhaitons que suite à notre conférence les participants puissent comprendre que l’équité sociale dans le domaine du financement des groupes communautaires canadiens pose un problème majeure puisque ce sont les provinces canadiennes qui en ont la responsabilité exclusive. La problématique du financement des groupes communautaires canadiens est intimement reliée à la façon dont se définit la province dans ses rapports avec les groupes et à ses disponibilités financières. Biography Richard Gauthier est détenteur d’une maîtrise en administration publique de l’École nationale d’administration publique. Il a rempli différentes fonctions administratives dans le monde municipal et scolaire pendant plus de 15 ans. Dans l’exercice de ses fonctions, il a mis sur pied de nombreuses organisations sans but lucratif et les a supportées dans leurs actions. Il agit comme consultant auprès des organisations sans but lucratif depuis plusieurs années. Il est président de l’Association des diplômés (es) de l’École nationale d’administration publique-région de Montréal depuis trois ans et siège au conseil d’administration de l’Institut d’administration publique du Grand montréal. C5. Workshop - CANCELLED The case for lone mothers through the lens of social and economic inclusion (SEI) - WORKSHOP CANCELLED Barbara Clow Abstract During this workshop, participants will be asked to consider why marginalized groups in poorer regions of the country, such as Atlantic Canada, tend to be hardest hit by both illness and by economic and social exclusion. Discussion will focus on the case of lone mothers in Atlantic Canada, drawing on research findings from a CIHR-funded study, ‘Rethinking health inequities: Social and Economic Inclusion and the Case of Lone Mothers’ (Lone Mothers and SEI). The workshop has three main objectives: 1) to assess the limits of current social policies that pertain to or affect women raising their children on their own in Canada; 2) to examine the merits and limitations of SEI as a framework for re-conceptualizing vulnerability and marginalization, drawing on local, national and international data and experience; 3) to explore the ways in which an SEI framework could be used in the formulation and implementation of more just, equitable, and inclusive social policy. Biography Barbara Clow is Executive Director of the ACEWH, a centre for research and policy advice on women’s health, under the auspices of IWK Health Centre and Dalhousie University. She has a PhD in the history of medicine and for more than 10 years has been engaged in research related to health history and women’s health, such as the impact of health reform on women and the role of gender in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. C6. Roundtable Literacy and community Tannis Atkinson, Adrian Blunt, Arthur Bull, William T. Fagan, Suzanne Smythe, Nayda Veeman Abstract In recent years, governments have moved towards narrow definitions that equate literacy with jobs and economic productivity. Experience from the field, however, has been that literacy is intertwined with community development and social equity. This roundtable will highlight recent research and projects which explore the connections between literacy, community building and social futures. We will examine the implications of the current individualistic emphasis in federal and provincial/territorial literacy policies in Canada. Finally, we will invite the audience to consider the ways in which literacy impacts all community initiatives and every aspect of social policy. Biographies Tannis Atkinson has been involved in adult literacy as a tutor, program coordinator, and field researcher. In the 1980s she helped develop materials by and with students in adult literacy programs. An editor who specializes in plain language, she currently edits Canada’s literacy journal, Literacies: Researching practice, practising research. Adrian Blunt is Professor of Adult and Continuing Education at the University of Saskatchewan. His research interests include social cohesion policy, literacy and food security and First Nations perspectives on social and human capital. Arthur Bull is the Executive Director of the Saltwater Network, and an Associate Staff Member of the Bay of Fundy Marine Resource, and the Past Chair of the Coastal Communities Network. Before working with the fisheries groups, he worked in community-based adult literacy in Ontario for 15 years. William T. Fagan has his M. Ed. (literacy), M. Ed.(psychology) and Ph. D. from the University of Alberta, Edmonton where he is Professor Emeritus. The author of seven literacy programs, he currently volunteers with low-income families to promote empowerment and social justice. Suzanne Smythe worked for many years as an adult and family literacy educator in South Africa and Canada, and has published several articles and book chapters on women, literacy and community development. She is currently completing a doctoral thesis at the University of British Columbia on the connections between mothering, family literacy and social policy. Nayda Veeman has worked in the field adult education for over 25 years; she has been an instructor, program coordinator, administrator, and a researcher. She recently conducted a comparative study of adult education policy in Canada and Sweden for which she received her PhD in May 2004. C7. Roundtable Rights and responsibilities: Towards a new social covenant in Canada Michael Polanyi, Jim Marshall, Janet Thomas Abstract Societies rest on an implicit social covenant defining what is expected of citizens, governments and other institutions. From the mid-1940s to mid-1970s, the Keynesian Welfare State prevailed in Canada, underpinned by a social consensus on the entitlement of all citizens to basic economic security and social support. Since then, the Keynesian Welfare State has been dismantled through funding cuts and program restructuring. A corresponding rise of market-based, individualist values has shattered the old social consensus, and, given its emphasis on self-responsibility, has arguably corroded citizens’ sense of belonging and mutual obligation. Is this the moment to try to articulate, with broad public input, a new social covenant that encompasses both individual rights and social responsibilities? In a roundtable of government, academic, faith and community stakeholders, we will encourage reflection on this question, and discuss possible directions for action. Biographies Michael Polanyi coordinates research, education and advocacy on Canadian poverty and social development issues at KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives. Rev. Maylanne Maybee is the coordinator of mission and justice education at the Anglican Church of Canada. She is also the co-chair of the Canadian Social Development program committee at KAIROS. Raymond Breton is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Toronto, and co-author of A Fragile Social Fabric?: Fairness, Trust and Commitment in Canada. C8. Roundtable Building policy and research capacity in our cities: the Community Social Data Strategy Abstract The aim of this workshop would be to discuss the emergence of , development of and lessons from the Community Social Data Strategy. The CSDS is a project which is based on a partnership between Statistics Canada, the CCSD and some 14 consortia formed of municipalities and non-profit organizations in cities across Canada. Until now access to detailed data on social issues has generally been the preserve of the academic community. The aim of the CSDS is to aid in developing research capacity in the municipal and non-profit sector by sharing data down to the neighbourhood level on issues such as poverty, work, education and housing. The workshop will examine how different cities have developed their coalitions, show some of their findings and show how these consortia can hopefully become the basis of research hubs in each city. This fits with the main conference objectives of forging more responsive and equitable policies, programs, and practices in the social policy arena as well as developing mechanisms to “generate new data and theories, stimulate collaborative synergies, envision novel policy ideas, and maximize knowledge exchange and mobilization”. The panel also addresses the conference themes of inclusion/exclusion, governance, and policy, partnerships. Biographies John Anderson is the Vice-President, Strategic Partnerships and Alliances and is responsible for the Community Social Data Strategy at the Community Social Data Strategy. He was the former vice-president for research at the CCSD and has been active on social justice issues for several decades. John Te Linde earned a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Western Ontario in 1981 and has twenty four years of research and management experience in both academic and applied settings. He is currently Manager of Policy and Planning with The City of Calgary. He has published in a number of areas including social planning and social policy and has been registered as a Chartered Psychologist in the Province of Alberta since 1982.