Social inclusion offers a great framework for responding to Nelson Mandela's challenge to us all "to turn this world around for children".
Raffi, a well-known and well-loved children's song writer and singer, has taken this message to heart. He created the Troubadour Institute to act as a catalyst in stimulating a fundamental shift towards a child honoring society - a society where progress is measured not by profit, but by measures of social, environmental and fiscal responsibility with regard to the impact on children of today and those of generations to come. Children would not be the only beneficiaries of such a society - we would all be.
Other groups in BC have been working actively in this direction as well.
The Society for Children and Youth of BC, a provincial organization that has been advocating for children's rights for the past 25 years, has, as part of their Child-Friendly Commmunities initiative, developed a tool kit for communities to measure child-friendliness in sixteen domains in their community, including health services, schools, family support services, childcare and early childhood education , parks, housing, and businesses. The kit includes numerous suggestions in each domain for how to make a community child-friendly.
First Call is a provincial, non-partisan, cross-sectoral advocacy coalition that has been supporting communities throughout the province in mobilizing around an action agenda to ensure that children and youth have the resources and opportunities to achieve their full potential and to participate in the challenges of creating a just and civil society. The action agenda is centered around four goals or Keys to Success:
Vancouver was one of the first communities in the province to mobilize around First Call's Keys to Success. This initiative called Windows of Opportunity for Vancouver's Children and Youth is unprecedented in the history of our city in the broad range of stakeholders that were engaged in developing a city-wide plan that is comprehensive, prevention-focused and community-based. Approximately 2500 people were consulted - children, youth, parents, and service providers from public and community agencies including the ethno-cultural, aboriginal and special needs communities. In a number of the community-based consultations, parents and youth were trained as facilitators. Funding was directed to the community level so food, transportation, child care and honorariums could be provided. Consultation was organized around processes and groups that already existed in communities. Some facilitators even took the consultation process door-to-door in social housing complexes, to capture voices seldom heard. Nine priority action areas were identified for city-wide action. Working groups were formed to develop goals, objectives, strategies, and performance measures for each of these areas. These action groups then came together and agreed on two broad areas around which to focus city-wide action:
The focus shifted during the consultation to consider not only what was needed in the way of new resources, but to look at what could be done with changes in policy that may have few cost implications and what could be done with better coordination and more creative use of the present resources.
Implementation of the action plan began even before the consultation phase was completed. With modest sums of money and new partnerships formed at the consultation table, communities were able to carry out projects that modeled what they wanted to see happen. In one of our neighbourhoods, a lay home visitor program started up, in which the services of the community were brought to the homes of families that were unable to access them for a variety of reasons. In a few of the neighourhoods, school entry transition projects developed which not only informed parents, but encouraged their participation in school activities and partnering in educating their children. The ethno-cultural consultation group developed a pamphlet that was translated into several languages that spoke about school readiness, about the critical role parents play in that and it highlighted the importance of maintaining their first language in the home and becoming involved in school, even if they have no facility in English.
Some of the public agencies partnered in projects directly related to Windows of Opportunity. The Vancouver School Board, the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board and Ministry for Children and Families funded a community asset mapping project that detailed the marked discrepancies in school readiness among neighbourhoods in our city and how this related to the socioeconomic characteristics of the neighbourhoods and the accessibility of resources.
In another project, the Vancouver School Board, the Public Library, and the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board partnered to pilot the Roots of Empathy, a school -based parenting program for elementary school aged children that fosters empathy by providing children the opportunity to observe a loving relationship through regular visits by an infant and parent(s) from the neighbourhood and through discussions about temperament, feelings and caring. Families from different cultures and babies with visible disabilities participate and demonstrate in a very real way that we are all the same on the inside.
The Vancouver Social Planning Department is in the early stages of looking at developing hubs of child development services and supports for children aged 0-12, along the lines of those called for in the Windows of Opportunity consultation.
One model that has attracted attention at both our provincial and local levels is the school-based parenting and literacy centers in 40 project schools in Toronto. These programs invite parents (and expectant parents) into the school for early child development activities to enjoy with their young children, while at the same time providing them with support for their parenting through education and information on community resources. It provides an opportunity for parents in the community to meet one another, to "rub shoulders with the school staff" and become involved in school activities when their child enters school. It changes the way parents view the school and school staff view the parents.
So what have we learned and how do our experiences relate to social inclusion?
We've learned that although our focus has been on creating a safe, nuturing and stimulating environment for our children and youth, what we are actually engaged in is community-building and creating a civil society, where everyone benefits.
We've learned that all of us have contributions to make, but to change things systemically, we need to work together. We each wear many hats in our family, community and work life and each of these roles affords us opportunities to make a positive difference in the lives of children, youth and families. Many of these opportunities to make a difference are at an individual level and each one counts, but to make the systemic changes that will ensure all children and youth are given the opportunity to develop to their full potential, we need to unite under a common vision that all children will have what they are entitled to - a fair chance in life.
We've learned that a common vision not only unites our efforts, but it builds a sense of community and belonging. It's the foundation on which respect and trust are built. If there are three words to describe our initiative, it's relationship, relationship, relationship.
Change is about process and process is about relationships. We've learned that it takes time to build trust and feel safe, to discover each other's gifts, to value and honor one another's contributions and feel a sense of connectedness and this must not be rushed.
We've learned that how you do something is as important as what you do. Our steering committee for the Windows of Opportunity initiative was comprised of service providers from both pubic and community agencies from different levels of the organizations and parents. Each person's point of view was considered equally valuable and decisions were made by consensus. Disparity in power in relationships is an obstacle to social inclusiveness, just as a disparity in income or resources jeopardizes outcome. An organization called Rock the Boat (www.rocktheboat.ca) works with service providers and interagency initiatives to change their way of doing business. They speaks of everyone as having gifts (often defined as assets except that there is no corollary for gifts). Uncovering these gifts in clients or colleagues and using them as a foundation for a relationship has led institutions to new ways of working with clients, new ways of charting, new ways of working with one another and with staff from outside agencies. Staff even report that it has changed the way they relate to their family and friends. This approach speaks to so much of what I think of as key in the definition of social inclusion, namely welcoming, respecting, valuing, and honoring.
Lois Yelland is a medical health officer with the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board and her work over the past several years has focused primarily around the health and well-being of children, youth and families at both the individual and systemic levels. She is involved in advocacy at the provincial level through the Society of Children and Youth of BC, First Call and Campaign 2000. She is spokesperson for the Windows of Opportunity for Vancouver’s Children and Youth initiative and chairs the advisory committee for the Community Asset Mapping Project, conducted in Vancouver by Dr. Clyde Hertzman.
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