The bus system in Waterloo Region is one of the most underrated municipal services. Buses provide an alternative to the car for getting around town. Buses can potentially reduce the number of car trips, each of which are hard on the road, the car, and the environment.
I am a member of a Local Transit Users’ Group. This group was formed as an initiative of the Rides to Work Committee, which endeavoured to address the transportation barriers that exist for low income or unemployed workers.
The Rides To Work Committee has been meeting out of The Working Centre for the past two years. It started with the initiative of one person — Maxwell Meikle — who had a particular concern about how people on a limited income can get to job interviews and to work in hard to reach places.
The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.
This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.
In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.
