RPTV Weekly News – (E-46) City Staff Presents at the February ED Network Meeting

Welcome to RPTV Weekly News Show Episode 46. In this weekly news show hosted by RPTV reporters Fred Alvarado, Kedar Ahmed, Ryan Field, Dylan Woolacoot and Fabio Rivera, we present news that impacts on Toronto's Regent Park and the surrounding areas.

• Episode 46 features segments on: 
• City Staff Presents at the February Executive Directors Network Meeting (01:58 min); 
• The School of Toronto Dance Theatre has a new home in Regent Park (08:27 min); 
• T.D.S.B. School Board Trustee Deborah Williams speaks to Regent Park Community about major key issues facing public schools (09:47 min); 
• Regent Park youth voice wins first place of TCHC 20-20 Vision Youth Essay Contest (15:09 min); TNG commemorates Black/African History/Heritage Month on February 1, 2023 (16:56 min); 
• The St James Town Green Café celebrates Black History Month inspired by African and Caribbean cuisine (19:38 min); 
• 10-storey student residence coming to 294-98 Sherbourne Street south of Gerard Street (23:01 min); 
• Toronto City Council Votes Against Opening 24/7 Warming Centres (24:14 min); 
• Protesters chant at John Tory during budget meeting at City Hall on February 15th (26:09 min); Toronto Mayor to officially resign on Friday February 17th, 2023 (27:40 min); City of Toronto passes 2023 budget (29:14 min); 
• Covid-19 and Vaccination Update (30:44 min); Events and Jobs in Regent Park (31:53 min).

This week's lead story:

City Staff Presents at the February Executive Directors Network Meeting

The Regent Park Executive Directors Network, commonly referred as the ED Network, is a network consisting of senior decision-makers of organizations serving the Regent Park neighbourhood. Generally, the network meets monthly to share information, advocate on issues and coordinate delivery service to the Regent Park area. The ED network is also an opportunity to invite guests and hear from speakers that can help better inform the network of the issues that they are concerned about.

On Monday February 13, 2023, the Executive Directors Network held their first meeting of the year. The meeting was facilitated by Greg Gary, the chair of the network representing Kiwanis K-Club and Leah Katerberg, co-chair representing Young Street Mission. The guest speakers for the meeting were City of Toronto staff members, Richard Kirwan, the Community Development Officer for the Downtown East and Daniella Castello, the City’s Community Development Worker serving the SDP and the Regent Park Neighbourhood.

Richard began the presentation with a brief review of the various City investments dedicated to Regent Park. These investments included the $50,000 Regent Park Operating Budget to Build Capacity of Resident Leaders and the Working Group, the Regent Park Legacy Funds, the Annual Regent Park SDP Grant that ends in 2024, Access to Capacity Building and Certification Workshops through the Strong Neighbourhood Strategy (the first of which will be Mental Health workshops delivered to the St. James Town neighbourhood), and Access to investments/donations through the Downtown East Cluster.

Following a top-level overview of these investments, Richard went on to talk about his and Daniella areas of responsibilities (11:18). Along with the TCHC Ongoing Revitalization and Community Benefits Network, much of their work revolves around the SDP. According to Richard, one of the reasons for presenting today was to talk about the ED Network’s alignment with the SDP, which is another area that falls under their responsibilities. Richard let the ED Network Table know that he is looking at developing an appendix of the in-kind supports that agencies are offering to the SDP that he intends to have profiled on the City of Toronto website. He also wants to work with the ED Network Table to identify area of supports or knowledge hubs that agencies can offer to the SDP such as staff trainings that SDP members can participate in, to build up their capacity. Under the area of Community Building and Outreach, Richard would like to explore how agencies in the ED Network can connect with their clients and bring them into the SDP, as well as how the SDP can bring community members into the agencies of the ED Network. Finally Richard is interested in doing a year-end investment report to show the great work that agencies are doing to support the SDP. Finally, under an area called, Strategic Staffing, Richard would like to see how agency staff can support the SDP and lend their expertise to the various working groups that make up the SDP.

Next, Daniella Costello talked about some of the City’s priorities related to youth engagement. Daniella spoke about the $250,000 Chris Billinger fund, that was allocated to youth projects in Regent Park. The City engaged Regent Park youth in reviewing the projects for funding. Daniella presented on the goal of building the capacities of these and other youth to take on leadership positions within the SDP. Daniella also wanted to work with the ED Network to connect agency youth workers around the community to the SDP for the goal of engaging youth and supporting them to make decisions on future SDP funds.

Following her presentation on the youth priorities, Daniella presented on the Legacy funds. She began with providing a brief background. Presently the funds are held in trust with the City of Toronto and are dedicated to community events and developing capacity building among residents in Regent Park. Daniella is looking for an agency trustee to oversee the funds disbursement, monitoring and reporting as well as training of residents.

After the presentation, Greg Gary invited Richard and Daniella to provide more information to ED members on the SDP. Daniella gave a little background and structure on the SDP for members. Following this information, Greg Gary opened the meeting for questions and comments.

Several agency representatives indicated their interest in better understanding the SDP and seeing an organization structure of the SDP as well as knowing who the working group chairs are and their contacts. Related to Richard request for staff support to the SDP, Adonis Huggins, the Executive Director of Focus Media Arts Centre, reminded the network that resident co-chairs from the SDP had made similar requests to the ED network before. Adonis also identified two areas of support priorities that he would like to see ED network to be involved in – namely supporting the SDP in strategic planning (which was an ask from the SDP itself) and conflict mediation, an area that the SDP seems to be struggling with. Here Adonis reminded members that the ED Network was very successful in leading a conflict mediation between RPNA and TCHC related to community benefits. Related to the request for staff support, Adonis also reminded agencies that it is not necessarily just resourcing staff to help the SDP, but also how their mission and objectives as agencies could be achieved through involvement in the SDP.

A final discussion was had related to comments Richard made about Regent Park vs the SDP. According to Richard, the City sees the SDP as all of Regent Park, while the SDP members see the SDP pertaining to only the members and structures connected to the SDP network itself. Richard acknowledges that the City’s view differs from the SDP view.

After thanking Richard and Daniella for their presentation, the ED Network commenced their work on reviewing their annual priorities. The four major priorities the ED Network identified for 2023 are supporting the SDP and Community Engagement, Network Coordination, Advocacy and Service Coordination. Members divided into two separate break-off groups to work on Network Coordination and Advocacy. Recommended action items from those involved in Network Coordination are 1) more work in committees and possibility meeting less as a whole group 2) more information sharing through communications platforms namely Hello Neighbour App and Regent Park TV 3) coordinating events for residents on particular services offered by agency members and 4) identifying a staff resource to support the ED network.

Action from the Advocacy group was to 1) revisit the terms of reference 2) identify the key issues the ED network is concerned about and exploring how we can find legitimacy among stakeholders related to the issues 3) as well as doing more work in committees.

The meeting concluded with a brief discussion on the SDP and Greg Gary relating some of his personal experiences and challenges he had as the agency co-chair representing the ED Network on the SDP.

Next meeting the group will review the terms of reference and how it aligns with the four priority areas.