Burlington Inclusivity Advisory Committee Meeting

Minutes

Meeting #:
Date:
Time:
-
Location:
3800 Constable Henshaw Blvd. (Halton Regional Police Services)

1.
Members Present:

Brian Wrixon (Chair), Kumkum Bhandari (Burlington Public Library), Maroun Naser, Ron Baliko (BAAC), Douglas Martin, Girish Parekh, Rana Al Semaani, Roy La Chappelle

2.
Others Present:

Councillor Blair Lancaster, Mary Lou Tanner (Deputy City Manager), Sondos Parker (SAVIS of Halton), Georgie Gartside (Clerk)

3.
Regrets:

Kate Dunn, Eric Schwab, Stephen Siomra (Halton Police), Farah Butt

4.
Declarations of Interest:

None.

5.
Approval of Minutes:

6.
Delegation(s):

6.1
Sondos Parker, Program Manager at SAVIS of Halton

Sondos shared the following information about SAVIS of Halton:

  • they have been providing services in Halton for over 30 years:
    • 1300 clients served this fiscal year; and
    • 2000 clients served via public education.
  • Support survivors of sexual violence, serving all genders and ages.
  • The majority of clients that access their support are female adults that were sexually assaulted as children and are working through the issues. Most clients are over the age of 20.
  • The services are open to assisting men. SAVIS has reached out to Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton to provide education.
  • Provide counselling services with four counsellors managed by a psychologist. Counselling is free of charge and offered bi-weekly over a period of a year. Help clients work through issues and help them find the hero within them. Work along side them and don't tell them what they should be doing with their life. Services are one on one with clients. In May, they hope to start offering some group counselling.
  • Prevention services include youth public education in schools throughout Halton. Work with teachers to provide information on specific topics. Also, identify male allies and talk to them about how to be an ally, as well as healthy relationships.
  • Received a grant in 2014 to assist clients that have been subjected to human trafficking. They now receive ongoing funding for this service. The Halton District School Board has asked SAVIS to provide education about this topic. There are many young girls being trafficked.
  • If clients need other supports, SAVIS connects them with community agencies, ie. Halton Legal Aid Clinic, Halton Housing, etc.
  • Cultural issues - strong connection with the Halton Multicultural Council (HMC). There is a large stigma on some immigrant communities. Collaborate with HMC to develop materials and figure out the cultural differences that need to be addressed.

7.
Regular Items:

7.1
City of Burlington land acknowledgement

Georgie shared that Mayor Golding and Angela Morgan, City Clerk, have met twice with Chief Laforme of the Mississaugas of the New Credit and once with Chief Hill from Six Nations to build relationships. A draft land acknowledgement has been presented to Chief Laforme to review. Chief Laforme has indicated he would like some changes made and when that has been completed, the Mayor and Angela will meet a second time with Chief Hill of Six Nations to have her review it.

7.2
Joint Meeting with BAAC, BSAC and BIAC

Brian provided an update on an April 12 joint meeting with the chairs and vice chairs of the three committees to share their 2018 workplans and discuss areas where the committees could work together. They agreed to:

  • meet quarterly to plan and share information, especially during the development of their work plans.
  • share information with each other about events each committee is organizing and/or attending. They discussed having a joint presence at events.
  • suggestion that instead of having designated members attend the other committees, leave it open to whoever can attend. Also, have BIAC members attend the other two committee meetings.

ACTION: Georgie to share the 2018 work plans and meeting dates for the committees and seek volunteers to attend upcoming meetings.

7.3
Attendance at BSAC and BAAC

Volunteers are needed to attend the next BSAC and BAAC meetings:

Accessibility (BAAC): Thurs., May 10, 7 p.m., City Hall, Room 247
Seniors (BSAC): Mon., June 11, 10 a.m., City Hall, Room 305

ACTION: Committee members to let Georgie know if they are interested in attending either meeting.

7.4
Sub-committee Updates

a.
Inclusion Lens

Kumkum posted an Inclusion Lens document to the committee's Dropbox for comments and suggestions. Doug shared that the scope of this is immense and really needs to have a full-time staff person or consultant working on it to really delve into the full work that is required.

Ron suggested that BIAC be involved in new city projects or programs moving forward to ensure they are inclusive (similar to the accessibility lens that BAAC provides). For practise, the committee could take an existing city program and audit it to determine how inclusive it is.

Councillor Lancaster shared that the city isn't aware of what cultural organizations need to feel engaged. It was suggested that the committee reach out directly to the various cultural organizations in Burlington to find out what the city could be doing to engage them. This will be discussed further at the next meeting.

ACTION: Georgie to circulate the draft inclusion lens tools document to committee members for review. Georgie to put together a list of questions the committee could utilize to reach out to cultural organizations.

b.
Communications and Public Awareness

Maroun said the subcommittee has been working to develop a draft communications plan that will be circulated to BIAC when drafted and then submitted to city communications staff.

c.
Staff Training

Rana shared that the subcommittee developed a draft staff training document that has been circulated to the committee for feedback.

The subcommittee also met with city human resources staff and discussed:

  • what the city's training needs are and how the training modules could be rolled out
  • how best to reach employees across all services (office employees, as well as fire fighters, transit drivers, etc.)
  • as a pilot, one of the lunch and learns could be videotaped and offered online to city staff.
  • facilitation of one of the modules at an upcoming leadership team meeting with extended management

ACTION: Committee members to review the training modules and provide feedback to Georgie by April 30.

d.
Dissolve subcommittees

The committee discussed the need to continue with the subcommittees if their preliminary work has been completed. The full committee should have ownership of the work moving forward and agreed to having a working meeting next month to discuss the documents developed by each of the subcommittees.

On motion, the committee agreed to dissolve the subcommittees.

7.5
Roundtable Updates

a.
Burlington Accessibility Advisory Committee (BAAC)

Ron shared that BAAC is planning to attend eight events throughout the year. Halton Showcase takes place tomorrow at Bateman High School. BAAC seeks feedback from residents at events using a board with questions asking: What aspect of Burlington do you find accessible and what don't you find accessible?

National Access Awareness Week (May 26-June 2): BAAC is planning an event using the AccessNow App. The event is set for Saturday, May 26, 10am, at city hall in civic square. The Mayor will attend to kick it off and attendees are being asked to use the AccessNow app to rate downtown businesses on how physically accessible they are - from getting into the front door, to the washrooms and staff.

b.
Burlington Seniors' Advisory Committee (BSAC)

Brian advised that the BSAC representative resigned. Georgie shared BIAC's committee dates to members of BSAC asking for interested volunteers to attend upcoming meetings.

c.
Halton Police

No update.

d.
Burlington Public Library

No update.

e.
Taskforce on Anti-Bullying/Harassment

Brian shared that the Taskforce's first meeting is April 25. Mary Lou shared that Councillor Lancaster and her assistant, Rebecca, have conducted interviews for the public members of the Taskforce.

f.
5th Annual Health Equity Symposium

Brian shared details of the full day event. The purpose was to look at how to use the data that healthcare providers collect. An overview was provided of how they use the data they collect to customize healthcare to communities represented by that data.

g.
Modest Tinkering or a Clean Slate

Brian and Doug attended this event about the future of income security reform in times of inequality with guest speaker John Stapleton. Doug said they were shown a number of slides that included statistics about old age security, CPP, workers compensation, Ontario Works, Ontario Disability Support Program, and Veteran Affairs military services program, etc. and talked about a living wage and the ideologies around it.

8.
Other Business:

8.1
Guests at future meetings

Georgie advised that the inclusivity and diversity representatives from Halton District School Board have been rescheduled to the June BIAC meeting and asked if the committee would like to have a representative from the City of Hamilton attend the May meeting to share information about the work they are doing (hamiltonforall.ca).

ACTION: Georgie to contact the City of Hamilton to see if someone is available to attend BIAC's May meeting to share information about the work they are doing.

9.
Adjournment: 11:15 a.m.

No Item Selected