Keeping people safe & well

 

Minutes of the Steering Committee Meeting

4th meeting

 

December 06, 2005, 1:00 – 02:30 pm
Banff Community House  

Present:                               

Superintendent Ottawa Police Services, Ottawa East
Constable (2) Ottawa Police Services
Manager BBBF and Community Services
Director Banff Avenue Community House
Project Coordinator, No Community Left Behind SEOCHC
Health Promoter for Youth, SEOCHC
Board Member SEOCHC(Chairman)
City of Ottawa Parks and Recreation
Osgoode Veterinary Clinic
Representative from Youth Services Bureau
President Tenants Association
Representative from Councilor Maria McRae’s Office

Regrets:               

South Ottawa Community Legal Clinic
Vice President, Community Services, United Way
Co-Coordinator, Russell Heights Community House
Community Developer, OCH
Representative from Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa

 

1.      APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

James Williams declared the meeting opened  welcomed the members present and invited a motion for the adoption of the Agenda which was approved, as circulated, by unanimous consent.  

2.      APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF  OCTOBER 25, 2005

Representative of Councilor Maria McRae proposed the following amendments which were agreed:

i)  page 2 (line 1, para 3) under sub-heading Ottawa Police Services : replace “The newly assigned officers will not replace Community Police Centre officers, the regular patrol officers or Youth Intervention Coordinator,”by “The newly assigned police officers will supplement the existing Community Police Centre officers, the regular patrol officers and Youth Intervention Coordinator.” 

 ii) under sub-heading Ottawa Community Housing: replace “A joint meeting of police and security officers was also proposed as early after the system is in place as possible” by “A joint meeting of police and security officers was also proposed as early as possible after the system is in place.”  

Minutes were approved as amended. 

3.      MATTERS ARISING FROM PREVIOUS MEETING: 

Committee Membership

      Chairman of the Steering Committee informed the meeting of the following changes to the Committee’s membership: Leslie McDiarmid replaced Catherine Dubois ( both of SEOCHC),. Rey Francis to represent Councillor Maria McRae’s Office , James Tanguay of the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa and Constables Lisa Briggs and Mario Bergeron of the Ottawa Police Service who were recently assigned to the Banff Community, Russell Heights, Confederation Court and Hetherington areas.  

Project Update

 Abid Jan reported on progress made since the last meeting on the implementation of approved project activities. He said that the Community Dinners were going well, with increasing Community participation. So far three Community Dinners had taken place on Thursday evenings from 6-7:30.  

The community now felt the need for service providers to attend these activities.  Their presence would help to promote informal information sharing about community affairs. The Tenants’ Association held its regular monthly meetings on the first Saturday of every month at 5 in the evening. Two meetings had taken place since work on implementation of the work plan commenced. The Tenant and Community Worker (TCW) from Ottawa Community Housing attended the meeting on December 3, 2005 and discussed various ways for strengthening the Tenant’s Association. 

After- school tutoring activity was also progressing encouragingly; regular attendance by students has improved. The objective of this activity was to mobilize youth (age 13 and older) and to promote a link to the Youth Council where the youth would become involved in the Youth Survey and other activities designed to enable positive attitudinal change and youth image building. 

As the community mobilization built some momentum, arrangements would be made for additional project activities to be implemented, including workshops on race relations and diversity issues. 

President of the Tenants’ Association expressed satisfaction with the project activities so far undertaken. She reported on some concerns of the residents who attended the Community Dinners, in particular the burning issues of safety and security in and about the Community. 

Partner’s Reports 

Ottawa Police Services

Constables Lisa Briggs and Mario Bergeron noted the activities and community concerns earlier discussed and undertook to give their full support to the Committee’s work.

The Committee was informed that a community safety audit called “Crime Prevention through Environmental Design” had already been conducted in Banff Community. The report would soon be shared with the Steering Committee so that actions could be taken, as appropriate, on the recommendations of the study.

The police officers also offered help with planned activities for addressing racial tensions and diversity issues in the community.

The assigned officers would attend some community activities to gain a fuller appreciation of community concerns, build trust and work together with community leadership to solve crime-related problems. 

City of Ottawa

Matt Perkins from City of Ottawa Parks and Recreation extended his offer and Jim Durrell facility for recreation activities. He promised to drop in for one of the Community Dinners in January and to share information about all relevant recreation activities with the community members. 

4.  BUILDING ON MOMENTUM

The committee thoroughly discussed the issue of building on the present momentum in project implementation so that sustainable positive change would result.  There was consensus on the issue that social transformation and attitudinal changes took time to be realized and that changing communities’ behavior, especially as regards crime-related issues needed sound program activities and sustainable human and resource inputs. Typically, programs were short- lived during which Communities were mobilized and problems addressed to a certain degree. Sometimes, the chain of intervention broke down due to lack of support, and the community became de-moralized. 

The committee suggested that the project should remain committed to the basic core activities of social mobilization and building trust relationship between all partners, particularly with the Ottawa Police Services and the Tenants’ Association, before adding new major activities.  It was noted that a 6-months work plan had already been approved to last until April 2006. The partners agreed to participate in the community meetings and other activities so as to encourage the mutual sharing of information to make for better community relations. The process will be continually evaluated and changes made, as appropriate, at the end of April 2006. 

5. Next Steps – Other:

• Project activities would continue as planned.
• A representative from Debra Dynes community would join the committee at the next meeting to share their experience in dealing with similar problems in their community. (Abid Jan to follow)
• Constable Mario Bergeron would be dropping in at the December 8 Community Dinner and Constable Lisa Briggs would attend the December 15 dinner.
• Ottawa Police Services would share the report of the environmental assessment of Banff and Ledbury community as and when it became available. (Ottawa Police Services)
• Matt Perkins would choose a date in January to attend a dinner and sharing available information about recreation activities.
• James Williams would join the Tenants’ Association meeting on January 07, 2006.

 

Next Meeting: Tuesday, January 24, 2006  
1 p.m.
Location: Banff Community House

 

© 2005-15 South - East Ottawa Community Health Centre
Centre de Sante Communautaire du Sud Est D'Ottawa

Contact: Abid Jan Tel./ Tél: (613) 737-5115 Ext. 2403  Fax/Télé: (613) 739-8199

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