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Count Me In! Forums
Dryden - February 1, 2006
Agenda | Notes | Photos
Notes
Words:
Having some fun
Belonging
Respected/mutual respect
Friends
Caring for neighbours
Tolerance
Equity
Everybody gets to play
Open
Opening a door
Empowerment
Family
Harmony
Growth
Team effort/teamwork
All cultures
Wanting to fit in
Kindness
Welcoming
Equal opportunity
Hope & belief
Opportunities
Advocacy
Equality
Understanding
Being accepted for who you are
Togetherness
Feeling comfortable
Struggle
Balance
Compassionate
Not being excluded
Acceptance / acceptance of different perspectives / of self & group
If inclusion is the answer, what are the questions?
- How can we motivate people to access services to help themselves & how
do we decrease the stigma of accessing services?
- Why do pepople feel excluded?
- Is exclusion subjective?
- Does society over-stress individualism rather than developing compassion
for other groups (how/why are we socialized to be so individualistic)?
- Are there levels of inclusion? You know the saying, you can
pick your friends but you can’t pick your family – you
can be included in family but not your neighbourhood, etc. It
feels like there are many levels of inclusion.
- How do people deal with some of the barriers to inclusion – peole
feel welcome in participating in programming but there are other things
as basic as transportation that mean they can’t get to the programs – not
having $$ or vehicle is a barrier to get to the programming that is
going on (& to participate otherwise)
- How do we get around our own ethnocentric barriers when dealing with
other cultures?
- Attacking a problem in the same way over and over and expecting different
results – how do we get around that [way of thinking]?
- How do we really serve First Nations people, and if we are really
going to include them why don’t we have more First Nations staff?
- What defines an individual’s or a community’s needs,
or their need for inclusion, and who defines that?
- What is the evidence base on the concept of inclusion, and why we
feel it is a needed aspect – where is the evidence? A lot
of times the best way of convincing people / overcoming objections
is to anticipate them & provide evidence.
- If inclusion is the answer why is it so hard to get there?
- What are the roots of exclusion – was it always like this,
were there always groups that felt excluded?
- How do you erase years and years of discrimination?
- Whose responsibility is it to ensure inclusion when there are power
inequities?
- Levels of exclusion – from an agency perspective we determine
what the program is because we have a mandate to do that. How
do we get people involved – it’s a different level of inclusion
involving pepole in developing programs in the first place, given public
health is hamstrung by regulations.
- How good it feels to belong to a group – you really lose something
if you lose that, eg. if you move -- how can you get that feeling that
you belong back?
Themes: (rlk)
First Nations
monetary barriers -- $$ to FN different, poverty, etc.
inclusion within groups
transportation
Themes – from groups:
- How can we motivate people to access services? Maybe it’s within
smaller groups that people feel included, but not within the larger
community. Maybe we’re looking too big, and we should also
look smaller and be satisfied with that.
- Barriers – transportation is a big issue – vans are
available in several communities, but they sit in parking lots – we
have the means, but liability is probably the biggest issue [that prevents
their use]. It’s too bad a partnership isn’t there where
Mother Goose could partner with the Early Years centre to bring kids,
because of carseat liability, for example.
- Why people feel excluded – cultural diversity – trying
to understand why people feel the way they do, opening up more dialogue
with different cultures (Flemish, Italian, Ukrainian, Aboriginal, East
Indian…)
- Is it realistic for us to expect everyone to feel included? Whose
responsibility is it in a group or community to make people feel welcome/included? Where
does individual responsibility come in?
- We need to listen and respect what people are saying about whether
or not they want to be included & not inflict our values on them
(at a variety of levels, not just program level).
- First Nations issues – a lot of frustration around governance,
power and control within agencies and communities. Some disc
of joint projects e.g. the hospital in Sioux Lookout, the struggle
for and around that. How to accept the reality [of struggle/frustration]
but bridge that, and share dollars between programs/departments, etc.
so needs are better met.
- Problems can seem overwhelming – it’s hard to imagine
how we might make a difference [at a high level] – [so they worked
on] program level thoughts, how to apply inclusion to youth programs,
thought it best to teach inclusion young because it’s hard to
teach an old dog new tricks.
- First Nations culture – how do we overcome years of discrimination,
language loss, etc. – they feel excluded, not trusting, there’s
widespread poverty, etc. What are culturally appropriate services
developed by them, managed by them? [It could look quite different.]
If they do have a different system it doesn’t diminish anyone
else’s – we need to draw the line to know when to support
someone’s inclusion, and when such support is over the line and
intrusive. Need to not be seen to be imposing our system on another
group, while still having the offer [of support] there in a way that’s
culturally appropriate.
What it was like to sit and not respond:
- Fine – interesting to hear the recapture of her idea, and
debate about potential starting. Issues were obviously recognized
and heard.
- not too much trouble – took lots of notes
- took lots of notes – busy enough, lots of good ideas, good
conversation. Very productive.
- huge relief to be off the hot seat and didn’t have to talk
any more – then felt privileged, they were very knowledgeable
about the topic and captured some good ideas
- hard to be very aware of body language. They were good listeners,
so they were able to reiterate the conversation. Felt understood. Wanted
to interject or just agree, sometimes – hard to not be a part
of the conversation.
- did want to turn around sometimes and have input but it was a good
conversation. Issues reflected, expnaded on, new ideas came up
- everyone had a grasp of what the issue is, understood where we’re
at and reiterated the listening phase
What it was like to talk behind the back:
- relieved not to have to solve the problem – didn’t have
a solution, so felt off the hook!
- nice to have a huge scope of things to talk about, so what you say
isn’t silly/irrelevant etc. You look further afield when
not pushed to find a solution
- solutions naturally arose in the conversation, even though they weren’t
trying to find them per se
- lots of ideas on how we might approach the issue
- allows you to explore different things [without the pressure of needing
to find a solution]
- reminds you of calls, when people call and ask a question, you get
so focused on answering it that you don’t listen and find out
what the question really was – could be something totally different
Themes and issues that carried throughout the day that reflect on inclusion
- transportation
- culture
- stigma / discrimination
- equity / empowerment
- poverty
- personal behaviour and attitudes
- early childhood development
- accessibility
Where are you starting from today, in terms of the work you’re
doing? Where do you see inclusivity working?
- inter-agency coalitions (not with individual recipients or community
members directly, although they maybe members through another organization)
- linkages – other supports in the community help address poverty
- food security – policies, programs
- breakfast for learning program
- universal access to meal and snack programs
- offices in many communities, vs other health units – try to
have equal by bringing services to people as much as they can
- low-cost or no-cost programs reduce barriers (e.g. subsidized water
testing)
- free condoms / affordable birth control
- advocacy with individual clients (e.g. countering eviction notices)
as well as at an organizational level (e.g. to argue against reduction
in bus services)
- dental program partnerships serving 14 first nations
- community health assessment done in 1997, community by community. Is
it worth re-doing this? Or maybe just go back to the themes that
emerged.
Questions about where things are less inclusive:
- Great divide from aboriginal – municipally funded so don’t
provide services on-reserve, although they serve aboriginal people
who come off reserve. People ask, aren’t they supposed
to have their own services? Where is our role?
- sitting in town serving fn people in town – haven’t walked
a mile in their shoes, may not even know what we don’t know about
how we can be more inclusive
- juristictional issues -- federal/prov/municipal responsibilities
are clouded and confusing, there’s no clear answer about who
has responsibility
- inclusivity within the health unit—one arm doesn’ tnecessarily
know what the others are doing. Maybe marketing the health unit
in its breadth would be a good idea as well as marketing specific issues
(sunscreen, smoking, etc)
- Youth groups can be inclusive when they are all together, but it
doesn’t necessarily carry into the rest of their interactions
with each other in the community. Shouldn’t assume what
you see in the room is the one truth.
- Health unit has youth programs but as a unit they weren’t very
inclusive – youth didn’t feel welcome in the office, etc. Not
a very open organization. Seems like a good place to start.
- Need to be more introspective and examine what we’re doing
that makes people feel excluded… hard to understand where we
could be going because we haven’t made contact with the issue
- We’re not poor. We’re service providers, the professionals,
we look very similar – mostly white, middle-class, over 25 – a
very exclusive group, really. Suddenly now that we have a youth
working for us we have youth buy-in… it was a tipping point. We’re
going to have to include those who don’t fit our mold, those
we don’t actually represent ourselves.
- When [one of the offices] moved, they chose to have a baby room (with
toys, a place to nurse, etc) over having a boardroom, and that made
a big change. How could we ask people to come to programs at
a place where they wouldn’t feel comfortable? It was a
real shift. Sometimes we put up barriers and we don’t even
know we’re doing it.
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