Power and Privilege in Community Engagement

Gillian Kranias joins Andrea to explore the concepts of social power and privilege, and their role in community engagement. The dominant groups in our society- in Canada, in Ontario, in the towns we live in and in our communities- carry power and privilege, which means that non-dominant groups are historically and continue to be marginalized and oppressed. There can be a distance between those that carry social power, and those who lack it. Being aware of those distances, noticing who we do not hear from and who we are not connected to, and then beginning to listen, can help to shorten that distance.

Having power gives us access to resources: money, access to space, time, mental energy, staffing etc. Gillian suggests several ways to shift power to communities:

• Focus on relationships first!
• Handing over resources: for example, funding grass roots groups to do research or hire peer researchers, sharing office supplies or materials that groups might not be able to afford
• Support community to meet on their own to share their ideas and prepare for meetings with staff
• Check in regularly (perhaps at the beginning of each meeting) and provide ongoing opportunities for dialogue. Participatory evaluation techniques such as “Hands-on rating” can be a good exercise to start conversations. 

Gillian’s closing piece of advice is to think about what relationships can support you in an ongoing way in your learning journey to becoming better professionals. Perhaps that’s a peer or colleague that you can connect with regularly, or perhaps journaling or reflecting on your own. This helps to make an ongoing commitment to the work.

Suggested Resources

First and foremost, let’s “change who we are learning from…” Here are some podcasts made by community members we are listening to:

• Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research.
• What’s Your Safe Word? Declarations of Resistance is a bi-weekly podcast from WomenatthecentrE, a Canadian incorporated organization created by survivors of gendered violence.
• Media Indigena is a weekly current affairs roundtable featuring guests from the worlds of activism, arts, academia and beyond join Rick for lively, insightful conversation that goes beyond the headlines to get at what matters most to Indigenous peoples.
• Talking Poverty Podcast from the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition.
• Secret Life of Canada, a history podcast about the country you know and the stories you don’t.

Here are some resources designed by professionals for professionals:

• The Collaborative leadership in Practice (CLiP) website has a number of resources, stories, research and tools to help you decentre power and share resources.
• Becoming an Ally in Partnerships – Powerpoint presentation by Lauren Burrows. She explains the triangle of oppression, and how it is often like an iceberg (much happens below the surface of everyday awareness). The title of Lauren’s webworkshop recalls the book Becoming an Ally by Anne Bishop
• Self-evaluation Tool for Action in Partnership – Angèle Bilodeau et al. 2017. This evidence-based tool includes 18 questions related to conditions for ensuring our partnerships really are places for equitable, innovative, and collective action. This tool comes from Quebec, where equitable community engagement thinking is thriving – in French.  
• Hands-on Rating on page 15 of the Participatory Evaluation Toolkit – This technique, used with any ladder or continuum of community engagement, allows for process reflections. Once ratings have been made, affinity group discussions (i.e. community members alone together) can bring out reflections on areas of consensus and difference and learn from the people around you.
• Bringing stakeholders together for urban health equity: hallmarks of a compromised process Amy Katz et al. 2015. The article highlights all the complexities of power and marginalization, and the different kinds of “harm” that can be caused when municipalities practice community engagement that is ignorant to the complexities of power. It puts into question whether communities benefit from getting involved in our engagement efforts, if it compromises their time or positioning to organize independently.  

From the Boardroom to the Kitchen Table: Niagara's Lived Experience Advisory Network

In this episode, Andrea is joined by Brandon Agnew and Donna Mills from Niagara Region Public Health, and community member Jennifer Symonds to talk about Niagara Region’s Lived Experience Advisory Network (LEAN).

Niagara Region started LEAN in 2018 to bring two parties together- public health, and people who experience poverty- to talk about the intersections between poverty and health in Niagara, and problem solve solutions to improve health outcomes. LEAN leverages the skills, talent and experiences of people who live in poverty and empowers them to be community leaders, to think outside of the box and look for innovative solutions. LEAN is also creating social connections between network members, and community connections between service providers.

There are several “ingredients” that allow LEAN to be successful:

• Public health leaders had an understanding of the importance of community engagement. This meant that staff didn’t have to “sell” the idea of LEAN to leadership.  
• LEAN builds on success of the Youth Advisory Committee which has been running successfully for several years.
• Public health staff leveraged existing relationships with community members who already knew and trusted them.
• LEAN members’ feel like their voices are heard and their advice is incorporated in decisions.
• Both LEAN members and the health unit are benefiting equally.

An important consideration when engaging people with lived/living experience is making meetings accessible, safe and comfortable. Brandon and Donna asked community members to choose how often they want to meet, where they want to meet and select meeting spaces that are comfortable (for example the atrium or cafeteria as opposed to a boardroom). Every monthly meeting includes dinner, which everyone eats together. Children and youth are welcome at meetings. Brandon and Donna promote car sharing, provide gas cards and taxi chits to make it easy and affordable for members to attend meetings. LEAN members are provided with an honorarium for each meeting. When shaping each agenda, Brandon lets the community set the pace in terms of meeting frequency and topics, and alternates meeting formats to include celebrations and casual conversations.

We end the episode with advice for listeners to consider as they engage people with lived experienced. Jennifer’s advice is to “just do it”: the benefits outweigh any risks or challenges. Donna’s advice is to make the engagement authentic and be ready to implement the advice and suggestions that you receive. Brandon’s advice is see the gifts and talents that people have, as opposed to the deficits.

Thanks to the Tenfold team and Niagara’s IT folks for making this episode possible!

Engaging People Who Use Substances: A Needs Assessment Project in Guelph

This episode is a conversation with Kyley Alderson from the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Health Unit about a needs assessment Kyley was recently a part of. Work on this project began in 2018 when Guelph was experiencing an increase in harms related to opioid use. The health unit wanted to engage the community and people who use illegal substances, in order to understand the context, what people use and how, what gaps exist in the community, and what ideas for solutions people have.

Staff from the health unit established an advisory committee, made up of local coalitions and agencies as well as people with lived experience of substance use. Through partners who had established relationships, 3 peers (people with lived experience of substance use) were hired to take part in the advisory committee and be peer researchers. The advisory committee developed the needs assessment strategy, which focused around interviews conducted by peer researchers, developed the interview guide, completed the ethics application, and selected the locations to conduct interviews.

The community engagement approach to conducting the needs assessment had several benefits:

• Planning: Approaches for the surveys were well planned out for the survey audience.
• Recruitment: Peer researchers helped with recruitment and led recruitment in ways that were appropriate for them and the audience. Peer researchers had trust and relationships with the audience, which allowed respondents to answer questions in open and honest ways.  
• Shared language: Peer researchers understand language around using substances, which helped with designing the survey questions and conducting the interviews.
• Analyzing and interpreting results: Having peer researchers who really understand the context helped with interpretation of the data and choosing what to highlight.

The community engagement strategy had a number of impacts. The findings were shared with community members, leaders and decision-makers, who were impacted by the data and stories collected as part of the project. The power of story helped to broaden and change thinking about people who use substances. The findings informed a number of grant applications, the development of new projects, service planning for the community’s consumption and treatment service, and the development of a substance use strategy for the health unit. The findings also helped to inform a second phase of the needs assessment, which focusses on people who weren’t reached by the interviews (for example, people who don’t live in Guelph and people who don’t use the services where the interviews were held).

Kyley’s advice for folks who are beginning peer research and/or working with people who use substances is to focus on relationships and connect with the community. Building trust with community partners, with peers and with people who use substances is a foundation for all meaningful work. Caring is important as well: to care about building relationship for the purpose of making the community better.

Kyley wants to acknowledge the project’s Advisory Committee members and staff who helped to meaningfully engage the community. Specifically, Patty Montague, Melissa Potwarka, Jennifer MacLeod, Moira Barber, Steph Beaumont, Todd Mansfield, Colin McVicker, Tom Hammond, Adrienne Crowder, Sarah Haanstra, April Fyfe and Chanelle Lobo.

Kyley and Andrea have the following resources to share:

• Research 101: A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the Downtown Eastside is a “how to” manual, informed by people who use substances.
• To learn more about the experiences of people who use drugs, check out the Crackdown Podcast for a Canadian perspective and Drugs Uncut from the Scottish Drugs Forum.
• The BC Centre for Disease Control has a guide for peer payments that created in collaboration with peers and providers. The guide provides rationale for questions that are often asked in organizations.

Engaging Leaders: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

 In this episode, Andrea is joined by Darrin Canniff, Mayor of Chatham-Kent, Ken McEwan from the University of Guelph Ridgetown Campus, and Karen Loney from Chatham-Kent Public Health. Darrin, Ken and Karen are all involved in the Chatham-Kent (CK) Community Leaders’ Cabinet, which brings together government, industry, health, education, and First Nations leaders to develop collective solutions to improve quality of life in Chatham-Kent.

The Cabinet began several years ago when, following a two year journey to engage communities in support of smoke-free outdoor spaces, the motion was defeated at Council. The health unit realized that in order to make policy change happen they needed to engage leaders and decision-makers more. The (former) mayor was approached to become a champion for health and bring leaders together. The mayor offered a physical location and the resources of the COA’s office and as Karen was working in the healthy communities portfolio, they allotted a portion of her time to be the coordinator of the cabinet.  The Cabinet is a unique structure; it has no mandate to come together and no official funding source, outside of the health unit covering Karen’s time. The Cabinet comes together out of goodwill and ultimately because they believe that collectively they can do more than one organization can do alone. 

One of the early successes of the Cabinet was the successful passing of the motion to ban smoking in outdoor space, following its initial ban- this time, with the support of the Mayor. The Cabinet led the community in pledging to make Chatham-Kent tobacco-free, community organizations provided smoking cessation workshops and strengthened their own smoke-free spaces policies, and when the vote went back to council it had 100% support. Other items highlighted included a Summit on Mental Health and the current focus on workforce attraction and retention that has three action teams.  

Our guests have some advice for listeners who would like to begin engaging leaders. Karen’s advice is to give yourself time, stay committed, and focus on building relationships with trust. Ken suggests to narrow the scope of the work so that people have something tangible to bite their teeth into. Mayor Canniff advises the “rob and duplicate” approach, so that you can replicate good work that is happening elsewhere and share ideas of what’s working.

If you like to reach out to the Cabinet with your questions or to find out more, email CKCommunityLeadersCabinet@chatham-kent.ca. For more information around system leaders, Karen recommends an article entitled The Dawn of System Leadership by Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton, & John Kania.

Engaging Community Partners: Toward Common Ground

In this episode, Andrea is joined by Sarah Haanstra from Toward Common Ground and Anna Vanderlaan from Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health to talk about engaging Wellington Guelph community partners in a community planning model.

Toward Common Ground (TCG) is a community planning model that brings together 13 leaders from social and health services to respond to shared needs and gaps in Guelph and Wellington. TCG does not have a “backbone” organization: it is guided by a steering committee, made up of member organizations that contribute resources (such as staffing, dollars etc.) and is not bound by any single mandate. A steering committee keeps a bird’s eye view of wellbeing in its broadest form: the social determinants of health, physical and mental health at the community level. No one organization’s logo is bigger than anyone else’s logo!

As Manager of TCG, Sarah is connected to many organizations and partners across Wellington and Guelph. As part of her role, she heard about a number of organizations working separately to address Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Sarah brought those organizations together to work collectively, now known as the ACEs coalition. Following a Call To Action Day, the ACEs coalition conducted a local survey to measures ACEs and resilience to provide a baseline for the work of the coalition. Community partners were involved in designing the survey: in a great example of a “win: win” situation, the local Ontario Works office were interested in knowing how ACEs might have impacted their clients. A question was added to the survey to provide this information, and in return the OW office promoted the survey to their clients.   

There are several key factors that contribute to TCG’s success:

• Partners are committed to the greater good in community, and the concept that health and wellbeing is not determined by any one factor. Partners understand the need to push levers in different places to have a collective impact.
• Partners are willing to be flexible, nimble and responsive to community needs. This means that priorities might occasionally shift to accommodate new work.
• Partners trust that organizations’ mandates are set aside for the common good, and partners also trust in the process until there is clarity on what’s next.
• Partners have identified the individual strengths that sit around the table and trust the partner with that expertise to lead those pieces.
• Partners are engaged and re-engaged in continuous communication, with formal and informal updates.

To end the episode, Anna and Sarah provide advice for those seeking to work as a community planning model. Anna’s advice is to spend time up front to build a collective or shared vision. The ACEs coalition spent time to build a theory of change that grounds the work of the coalition, prior to beginning more concrete action. Sarah’s advice is to be deliberate about what one meeting or one gathering means in terms of the bigger picture: one step leads to the next and leads to a little more clarity – and to the common vision.

To learn more about Toward Common Ground, visit their website at http://www.towardcommonground.ca/en/about/about.aspx. Visit the ACEs Coalition website at https://acescoalition.ca/.