Inclusive Social Policy Development:
Ideas for practitioners

Summary Report from
Inclusive Social Policy Development: Building Diversity-affirming Communities
A seminar held February 13-15, 1997 Ottawa, Ontario
Canadian Council on Social Development
Carleton University School of Social Work

Acknowledgements

The Canadian Council on Social Development and Carleton University's School of Social Work are very grateful to Canadian Heritage for the financial support provided for this seminar.

Thanks also to the following organizations for providing useful advice and support in shaping this event:

  • Canadian Ethnocultural Council
  • Canadian Labour Congress
  • National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women
  • National Visible Minority Council on Labour Force Development

We would also like to express our appreciation to the volunteers who took notes throughout the seminar. This booklet is based on their notes.

And a very special thank you to Elizabeth Kwan, Consultant, for managing this project, including the organization of the seminar and the preparation of this booklet.

Using this booklet

This booklet summarizes some ideas and approaches discussed by participants and resource people at a seminar called Inclusive Social Policy Development: Building Diversity-affirming Communities, that was held in Ottawa from February 13 -15, 1997. The booklet is divided into four thematic sections. In each section you will find highlights from the discussions regarding the following:

We hope the information in this booklet will both inspire and encourage more work in the practice of inclusive social policy development. For some readers, it will serve as an introduction to the overall concepts and approaches outlined here. For others, it will provide ideas for specific tools that they can use to make their work or organization more inclusive of Canada's cultural diversity. It was written for practitioners, administrators and researchers in the social policy field.

Introduction

The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD), in partnership with the Carleton University School of Social Work, held a three-day professional development seminar called Inclusive Social Policy Development: Building Diversity-affirming Communities in Ottawa on February 13, 14 and 15, 1997. The rationale underlying the seminar was that integrating diversity considerations into social policy development is an essential component in the creation of communities that are truly inclusive. In such communiti es, cultural diversity is viewed as an asset which enriches every aspect of people's lives.

The purpose of the seminar was to promote excellence in social policy development through the meaningful inclusion of cultural and racial diversity considerations. For this seminar, social policy development was considered to be a dynamic continuum of wor k that encompassed:

The seminar participants had the opportunity to:

There were three assumptions underlying this professional development seminar. The first assumption was that discrimination and racism are present and evident in the social policy field. The second assumption was that people define themselves by a variety of characteristics including their cultural background, gender, race, sexual orientation and socio-economic status. The last assumption was that current practices in the social policy field tend to segregate rather than integrate diversity considerations .

The challenge in social policy development is to approach and work with culturally diverse populations both as separate groups in the community, and as a dynamic part of the whole. To promote this perspective, consideration of culturally diverse concerns must be integrated into thinking about the whole community. For example, when considering the poverty suffered by particular ethnocultural communities, it should also be viewed within the context of the overall poverty experienced by the community.

The CCSD and the Carleton University School of Social Work brought together a culturally diverse group of 55 people to participate in the seminar, including social planning professionals, local and municipal government decision-makers, federal government representatives, social policy educators, and members of national organizations. Another 20 people were involved as staff and volunteers.

Over the three days, participants explored several social policy development areas in workshops and plenary sessions that were guided by resource people selected for their expertise in inclusive social policy development. They were:

Dr. Audrey Kobayashi, Director of the Institute of Women's Studies, Queen's University, addressed participants at a dinner during the seminar.

This booklet captures the highlights of participants' comments in the workshops. It is divided according to the following themes:

Building inclusive institutions

In the workshops, participants talked about the factors that have prompted institutions to review their practices in order to become more inclusive of all forms of diversity. They also discussed the process of institutional change and specific tools that can help organizations in these efforts. It was recognised at the outset that if organizations are to succeed in eliminating barriers for diverse groups, they need to employ various approaches and have a strong commitment to the process of change and foll ow-up.

"Research is ultimately about who has the power to define the social reality, and what counts as knowledge. The power relation that is embedded in the research process and the standpoint of the researcher must be made explicit in any research that attempts to include marginalized and disadvantaged groups."
– participant

One way organizations can become more inclusive is to provide cultural competency and anti-racism training for their staff and volunteers. Cultural competency training is a process which enables participants to develop understanding, knowledge and skills in working with culturally diverse groups. Anti-racism training helps participants to develop practices that are free of racism, harassment and discrimination. While seminar participants agreed that one-time cultural competency and anti-racism training is a good mechanism to increase awareness about cultural diversity and discrimination-free practices, on-going training sessions are necessary to sustain learning about these issues.

If institutions decide to make cultural competency and anti-racism training mandatory for staff or volunteers, they must have strong communication processes and adequate supports in place. It is also important to acknowledge the existing cultural competen cy levels of participants in the training process. Further, it is crucial to stop and reassess the training when problems arise.

Of feminist and anti-racist work:

"...we've skimmed over the notion that we are talking about people's rights...we have this notion that it is an optional issue for people...and that the time frame can be set by individuals..."

– parti cipant

Another way to promote inclusivity within an organization is to increase the number of people from different ethno-racial backgrounds on the board of directors. However, participants warned that unless people of different ethno-racial backgrounds have a g enuine history with that institution, their appointment to the board of directors will be seen as tokenism.

In light of the increasing cultural diversity within Canadian society, most institutions need to increase their institutional capacity to become more inclusive. This often requires that they examine the processes and structures within their organisation t hat facilitate, or hinder, the participation of diverse groups.

Consideration

Seminar participants suggested some considerations that may be helpful before initiating any institutional change agenda:

It is also useful to consider the following questions regarding participation in promoting an inclusive institution:

Further discussions at the seminar highlighted two common barriers that need to be carefully weighed before embarking on institutional change and training processes. First, the readiness of individuals to engage in training needs to be considered. Second, existing problems within the institution that could hinder the training process, such as poor communications, must be considered.

Tools

A resource person introduced participants to two tools that can help focusand clarify the process for organizations as they strive to become more inclusive.

The first tool is a checklist of components within the institution that can be assessed for their level of inclusivity:

The second tool identifies the prerequisites that are needed to support institutional change:

Example

One seminar participant related the following experience that successfully enabled an organization to become more responsive to the needs of culturally diverse groups.

A regional social services department in Ontario made a commitment to provide anti-racism training to all staff members. The department started in 1992 by assessing its anti-racism training needs. Following this assessment, anti-racism training was mand ated for the managers and supervisors. The rest of the staff were invited to attend adult education sessions, but this was not made mandatory. By 1997, more than 200 staff had received training in anti-racist practices. The social services department cont inued its anti-racism efforts by working with members of ethno-racial minorities and settlement agencies to develop a new anti-racism strategy. The success of this regional social services department in its anti-racism efforts was due to its continuing co mmitment to provide cultural competency training.

Creating partnerships with diverse communities

Building diversity-affirming communities requires outreach activities, partnerships, planning and community advocacy by local governments and social policy organizations so that members of the community are included in the process of change.

"...there has to be a view that inclusiveness in any social policy development initiative or practice is seen as a right and a requirement. Diversity must also be viewed as a resource and not an impurity."

– participan t

The purpose of this discussion was twofold. Participants were first asked to identify the different needs and challenges of culturally diverse communities. They were then asked to consider the roles and responsibilities of social and economic institutions in the integration and support of diversity considerations.

Several seminar participants raised concerns about the general tendency of persons working in the social policy development field to create new policies and programs without considering the interrelationship of social issues within the community. For exam ple, if social planners want to address the issue of child poverty, they need to develop a strategy to address the parents' poverty, which in turn is affected by the structure of the community in which the families live. The participants also noted that w hen they engage in community development and planning, some researchers and municipal administrators do not see themselves as part of the community.

Several resource people at the seminar talked about the need to view members of the community as a dynamic resource that can and should be included more effectively in social policy development. Further, they suggested that, collectively, people in the co mmunity are capable of developing answers to their own problems. Participants also suggested that social policy professionals at the local level need to differentiate between community planning and institutional planning. According to one resource person, genuine community planning must involve citizens who articulate the issues and generate outcomes that best serve their community. Too often, institutions or bureaucracies identify the issues and produce outcomes that serve the interests of the organizati on more than the community.

Of Aboriginal and ethno-racial people in Canada:

"...we face some of the same issues and struggles in terms of child poverty and education and racism and discrimination."

– participant

Two other community planning issues were identified at the seminar. First, participants acknowledged that conflict is often part of the community development and planning processes. Second, community development and planning becomes exploitative of people , especially those in marginalized groups, when it does not address issues that those groups see as important.

Many seminar participants agreed that partnerships between community stakeholders such as agencies, individuals, cultural and racial groups, and local governments are vital to community-level social policy development work. They suggested that the partner s need to be committed and accountable to each other for the community partnership to work well. And they said that when forming partnerships, it is important to communicate the values and assumptions of each partner at the beginning of the process. Some seminar participants felt that while partnerships can be vibrant in the early stages, unless they are sustained they tend to serve the interests of the institution rather than those of the community.

Further discussions focused on the perception, use and abuse of partnerships in community-based social policy work. The term ‘partnership' implies a relationship where power and control are shared equally. But when organizations and social policy research ers work with powerless and disadvantaged populations within the community, the assumption that all parties are equal is often incorrect because in fact, the organizations and researchers have more resources and power in the decision-making process than t he smaller groups.

Participants also pointed out that in order to build strong community partnerships, it is important to involve various sectors and individuals. For example, if it was decided to mount a strong response to cuts in welfare payments, then creating a partners hip which included labour unions, social service agencies, women's groups and local businesses (all sectors that would feel the economic impact of the cuts) would be an effective mechanism. Some participants stated that unless partnerships involve a genuine sharing of power, they simply reinforce the marginalization of powerless groups within a community. For example, some organizations have consulted with or appointed a few members of Abori ginal or other ethno-racial minority groups to their advisory boards, and considered these actions to be meaningful partnerships. However, if the organizations' practices and procedures remained unchanged, no integration of cultural diversity consideratio ns would result. For meaningful community partnerships to be formed with people from Aboriginal and other ethno-racial backgrounds, the people themselves must be asked to define why, how and with whom they will collaborate.

Consideration

When community partnerships are being developed, the following questions should be considered:

Examples

Several success stories follow of outstanding and innovative inclusive community work in social policy development.

Culturally appropriate service development and delivery

At the seminar, participants explored the characteristics of culturally appropriate and accessible services, and discussed ways to deliver such services in culturally diverse communities.

For the purposes of the seminar, accessible and culturally appropriate services were identified as those which were developed and delivered in ways that respected cultural beliefs and practices. An example of one such initiative came from an Ontario regio n, where members of a working group composed of representatives from community agencies and from municipal and provincial governments worked together to improve the access to social services for clients who did not speak either French or English.

Seminar participants identified solid planning and community involvement as critical to successfully obtaining funds or resources for accessible and culturally appropriate services. Some participants added that creativity is also needed to acquire and sus tain resources for these services.

Two other useful points were made by participants. First, those who develop services for culturally diverse communities need to be part of a continuous education process so that their understanding of cultural diversity issues and practices keeps evolving , and is free from racism, harassment and discrimination. Second, before accessible and culturally appropriate services can be developed, it is important to identify the methodologies and ideologies underlying the existing service delivery methods.

Consideration

Some seminar participants suggested that the developers of social programs should consider the following questions if they want the services to be accessible and culturally appropriate:

"If we cannot work on multiple levels to understand the ways in which culture may be informed by patriarchy, including our own, then we can't understand which cultural norms to use to assess the situation in a respectful way when women and childre n of that community may be vulnerable to a cultural practice.''

– participant

One resource person introduced a tool that is used in focused and intensive planning work, called PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope). It is a visual tool that can be used in a variety of situations, from helping families to work on issues, t o community development. PATH is used most successfully with people who have already made a commitment to planning for change.

PATH diagram

The PATH diagram is not included in the electronic version of this report. To obtain the published report, please email council@ccsd.ca.

Examples

The following examples presented at the seminar demonstrate successful ways of developing and delivering accessible and culturally appropriate services.

Inclusive social policy research

Participants at the seminar discussed the challenges of conducting social policy research that is inclusive of culturally diverse groups. They considered methods to increase inclusivity in the design of the following research components: theoretical frame works; participatory research; qualitative and quantitative research methodologies; sampling procedures; and methods of analysis.

"Research is ultimately about who has the power to define the social reality, and what counts as knowledge. The power relation that is embedded in the research process and the standpoint of the researcher must be made explicit in any research that attempts to include marginalized and disadvantaged groups." – participant

One resource person suggested that using socio-cultural indicators in applied quantitative research can provide an inclusive assessment of needs and results. However, this resource person stated that few effective socio-cultural indicators for ethno-racia l inequalities have been developed.

Participants referred to existing research that should be considered when trying to conduct inclusive research: gender-based analysis that is developing methods of researching inequalities, and some early childhood intervention projects that have develope d useful measures of community development.

The resource person stressed the importance of looking at the broader context of the community when collecting and analysing socio-cultural indicators. She suggested that while numerical results are easy to obtain, they are meaningless if they are taken o ut of context. For example, if AIDS rates are high in a particular neighbourhood where certain ethnocultural groups are concentrated, the conclusion might be drawn that these groups present a risk to the larger community. But if the context of the neighbo urhood is assessed, we might discover that the high AIDS rate is related to other variables, such as the number of transient houses and clusters of service agencies in the neighbourhood.

"...there is no objective or neutral research. All research is shaped by the intention and standpoint of the researcher."

– participant

This resource person offered the following ideas: first, it is important to realise the political implications of your research, and to present politically-oriented recommendations. For example, if you recommend that social programs should be funded from income taxes rather than from residential taxes, you are putting the onus on the federal government to deliver services, rather than the municipal government.

Second, those in the social policy field should be sensitive to and respectful of cultural practices. For example, a researcher should be aware that in the Filipino community, pregnant women will not visit a physician until the third trimester because the y do not like male physicians.

Finally, it is crucial to be sensitive to the use of labels and negative language. Terms such as "dysfunctional families" and "children raised on social assistance" can create a biased perspective in the research by generalizing the negative social charac teristics of these groups.

When conducting qualitative participatory research, researchers must consider the power relations of every aspect of the project, including the choice of participants, and the design and interpretation of the data. Power relations between the researcher a nd the research participants, especially if they are from a marginalized group, are often unequal. Thus, the information collected by the researcher may not be valid. It was also stressed that researchers should clearly state their values, assumptions and analytical perspectives at the beginning of the research process.

"Doing inclusive research, does not simply entail a set of techniques. It includes a set of principles for addressing issues of power, privilege, and the very purpose of the research itself."

– participant

It is crucial that researchers recognise that people in the community are very knowledgeable about their problems and often have solutions. The researcher's role is to help to draw out the information and facilitate the ways in which the information is us ed. Seminar participants were reminded about the importance of finding a balance in their research role, since it is neither useful to pull back too far from the researcher's expertise, nor to discount the community's knowledge.

When conducting participatory research, it should be acknowledged from the outset that the researcher is only one of many people involved in the project, and he/she does not have exclusive ownership of it. The resource person noted that this is a particul arly sensitive issue in the academic environment, and it needs to be discussed at the beginning of the process. Academics often feel tension because they need to maintain ownership of the research in order to publish the results. However, once the researc h has been completed, it can be shared with and used by both academic and community groups.

Another consideration when conducting inclusive research is the issue of representation – that is, how does the researcher define groups? Who is left out, and why? To be inclusive, the research design team should include consumers. Further, the research s hould be written in plain language so that it is accessible to all stakeholders and research participants.

Seminar participants discussed the role and implications of conducting project evaluations. Some people stated that the evaluations should assess the impact of the research on the community, in addition to any other measurements required for funding purpo ses. One participant suggested that it was useful to document how the research had changed, and to identify any issues that had emerged but were not addressed in the research. Evaluations should involve a broad range of stakeholders such as consumers, com munity groups, institutions or organisations, funders, and other agencies external to the research project. Finally, participants noted that evaluations should also be conducted with the goal of assisting in the planning of future projects.

Consideration

Seminar participants suggested the following considerations to help ensure that quantitative research incorporates the concerns of diverse cultural groups:

Similarly, the following considerations were suggested to help clarify research issues:

Tools

Some tools to enhance inclusive, quantitative, community-based research were put forward:

"... a research process is accountable...not only to the funders and the researcher's organisation, but also to the people for whom the research is intended."

– participant

It was also suggested that working with coalitions and bringing a variety of sectors together provides more resources and adds credibility to the process. Finally, participants noted that when program assessments are conducted, the assessors should not on ly meet the requirements set by the funders – which are usually to measure the availability and accessibility of services – they should also examine the program's impact on individuals and communities.

Examples

Below are some examples of inclusive social policy research that were shared at the seminar:

Conceptual framework for ethno-racial health research diagram

This diagram is not included in the electronic version of this report. To obtain the published report, please email council@ccsd.ca.

Conclusion

The increasing cultural and ethno-racial diversity of Canadian society means that the needs of individuals and communities are changing. Meeting those changing needs requires new ways of carrying out social policy development work. A truly meaningful resp onse to diversity is the only route towards achieving excellence in social policy development work. As communities across Canada become more diverse, traditional methods of conducting social policy development work must change. It is estimated that by the turn of the century, the majority of new entrants into the labour force will be women, and represen tatives of Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, and racial minorities. This should have a great impact on social policy development in the areas of labour force trends and adjustments, and in other social programs.

This booklet offers a glimpse of some social policy development work that is inclusive of the culturally diverse populations in many communities across Canada. Social policy practitioners and researchers must rise to the challenge of integrating diversity considerations into their ongoing work to provide:

The challenge in social policy development is to approach and work with ethno-racial and culturally diverse populations both as separate groups, and as a part of the whole community.

Copyright © 1997 by the Canadian Council on Social Development. All rights reserved. No part of this booklet may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information stor age or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The views and opinions expressed in this booklet were recorded from seminar participants and do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of Canadian Heritage, the Canadian Council on Social Development or Carleton University.

Inclusive Social Policy Development: Ideas for practitioners
ISBN 0-88810-457-X
Aussi disponible en français sous le titre : Le développement d'une politique sociale inclusive : Idées à l'intention des intervenants

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