What do the Premier of Ontario and the Mayor of Cambridge have in common? They are both politicians for sure, but would likely describe their politics very differently. They are both elected in general elections but their influence on the type of policies that affect our everyday lives are quite different. So what do they have in common?
If you have been following the Good Work News for the past few years, you will already be aware of the controversy surrounding plans from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) to construct a brand new expressway between Kitchener and Guelph.
The Ministry of Transportation is planning to build a new expressway between Kitchener and Guelph to replace the existing Highway 7 route. The expressway will have four lanes, controlled access, and will be designed for 120 km/hr (the posted speed will be 100 km/hr).
Take a moment before reading further and imagine yourself in a quiet office sitting behind your desk, a pen in one hand and a blank piece of paper in front of you. Absent mindedly playing with the coffee mug, you know you must make a recommendation on that proposed plan that came to your office for approval.
From the Ontario Ministry of Transportation come the latest plans for a new road project. Well, not that new. There were plans for constructing this road in the 1970s but the project never materialized.
It has become increasingly apparent during the last 40 or 50 years that the idea of creating livable neighbourhoods has all but vanished from the practice of urban planning and development. Where neighbourhoods were once planned to promote community and provide a balance between the public and private spheres of life, today the focus has shifted most radically to insulating people from each other.
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.
