Interpersonal Conflicts Threaten to Hijack the Work of the SDP

In this weekly news show hosted by RPTV reporters, Fred Alvarado, Murphy Brown, and Victoria Nanneti, we present news that impacts on Regent Park and other surrounding communities located in the Down Town East communities of Toronto.

* Episode 25 for the week of March 28th to April 4th, 2022 features segments on:

* Regent Park Celebrates The Social Development Plan (01:24 min);
* Fire Breaks Out at 220 Oak St High Rise Residential Building on March 26th (20:04 min);
* Interpersonal Conflicts Threaten to Hijack the Work of the SDP - Report of March 24th SDP meeting (21:21 min);
* Report on March 25th Community Meeting Regarding Developments in Toronto Centre – Housing, Community and Green Spaces (32:00 min);
* Toronto Mayor John Tory to Seek 3rd Term in October Election (35:37 min);
* Ontario Gives $800K to Indigenous Health Teams to Address Residential School Trauma (38:52 min); Covid-19 and Vaccination update: Toronto is a global leader in COVID-19 vaccination coverage /Vaccine Clinics in Regent Park (40:11 min);
* Events & Jobs in Regent Park (45:14 min).

Below is one of the featured stories in the news related to the March 24 SDP meeting.   

Interpersonal Conflicts threaten to Hijack the work of the SDP - report of March 24 SDP meeting
By Adonis Huggins
(Adonis is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

The Regent Park Social Development Plan is a community wide initiative aimed at building social cohesion and inclusion. The plan revolves around 4 priority areas each represented by a working committee. The four working groups are Communication, Safety, Community Building and Employment and Economic Development. The body tasked with coordinating the 4 working groups is the SDP Planning Committee.  The committee comprises of all the other members of the working groups and sub-committees.
 
The March 24, 2022, meeting of the SDP Planning Committee was held over Zoom and chaired by Ismail Afrah, the TCHC tenant co-chair.  The meeting began with reflections on the SDP Celebration event held on March 23rd.  Everyone that attended expressed positive comments about the event.

 Similar to the previous meeting, the group discussed the need to have other residents facilitate future SDP Planning Committee meetings.  Gail Lynch was adamant that only residents should facilitate the SDP Planning Committee meetings. Deany Peter argued that there is a difference between facilitating the meeting and chairing the meeting.  Some residents might have difficulties and concerns in chairing the meeting but will find it easier in facilitate a meeting defined as moving the members through agenda items.  Regardless of whether a resident was facilitating or chair, Ismail indicated that they would receive support and be mentored to do so.  In the absence of volunteers, Walied Khogali, a resident and regular facilitator of the SDP Planning Committee volunteered to chair the March 31 meeting.
The next item was related to welcoming Mahadir Khan, the new administrator coordinator of the SDP Stakeholders Table.  Joel Klassen introduced Mahadir and let everyone know that he (Joel), as a staff member of the YSM who is trusteeing the funds, will be supervising Mahadir.  Joel informed the committee that Mahadir will be working closely with the Daniella Castello, the City support worker in carrying out his responsibilities. Mahadir let everyone know that he is a long-time resident of Regent Park and looks forward to working with everyone.

The next item on the agenda was a discussion initiated by Murwan Khogali, about the internal conflicts among and between members of the individual working groups.  Murwan feels that discussions among members are becoming unhealthy and some members are engaging in personal vendettas. Murwan indicated that one of the working group tables, which RPTV News is not a liberty to reveal, is particularly problematic.  According to Murwan, who has attended this working group, argues that this particular working group table is a place where people bash each other and don’t respect the chair. The meetings are chaotic and agenda items don’t get resolved due to infighting and not understanding each other.  Murwan feels that the issue has been made to fester for too long and should be addressed because it is affecting the work.  Murwan has indicated that some of the important stakeholders on this table are starting to check out. Various members shared their opinions on this issue.  Michael Rosenberg argued that some of the groups work well among themselves but have problems working with members from other tables and some working groups are not working well among themselves.  Gail felt that part of the problem is personality and part of problem is lack of structure, alignment between tables and coordination.

In addressing the lack of coordination and alignment, Walied announced that he will call all the co-chairs and have a meeting to talk about coordination much to the objection of a member that felt that Walied was moving on his own without a consensus or a group decision.  
One member argued that the working groups were not meant to work in isolation of each other. The idea was that the groups would collaborate and work on behalf of each other.  This member suggested that the SDP Planning committee should return to having each group provide a report and discuss their activities in each meeting.    

Another member argued that there was never any doubt about having an alignment meeting, there was always a plan to bring everyone together to discuss each others project activities. This member was adamantly against the suggestion of having a closed meeting between chairs.

A third member agreed with suggestions that most working groups work in silos and don’t know what the other groups are doing and when.

A forth member angrily expressed her frustration and felt that she has been personally bashed and attacked for the work she is doing.  This member felt that respect goes both ways and its not a one -way street.

Another member felt he was removed from a meeting of one of the tables he was attending for no justification and wants this issue addressed. A second member backed his claim and argued that this should be dealt on the top of the agenda at the next meeting.

An agency member felt that serious conversation has to happen because issues are been raised that is taking us from the work we are committed to do.

Another agency member felt that there are relational issues that is taking us away from the work and if we don’t acknowledge this and only focus on alignment and coordination, then the personal issues will continue arrive.  One of the challenges is that everything keeps changing and that the SDP processes and decisions are not well documented and kept in a place that is accessible to members. This creates conflicts between members who lack the information.

A resident member felt that most of the conflicts are between residents and agencies should play a stronger role in speaking up and helping and managing these relationships. The resident felt that one of the working groups is not working and it is the role of the planning committee to address this issue.

In response to the issue of organization members playing a stronger role, an agency member felt that it’s not that service providers don’t have opinions, its just that some of their comments are not welcomed.

A grassroots group member felt that the culture sub-committee group should work on addressing the personal issues and that there should be a broader meeting on coordination between the working group.

 Ismail the chair concluded the meeting by arguing that there are three issues – 1) understanding of each other work through sharing of information; 2) collaborating and complimenting each other’s work through shared activities; 3) its really difficult to understand each other work and collaborating together if we don’t get along.

Ismail made three recommendations. To leave the culture committee to do its work related to the functioning of groups.  The second recommendation was to create a conflict resolution task group. The third recommendation was to create a coordination and alignment task group.  An objection was raised by a City staff that there are already too many task groups and that we may already be overextended.  Unfortunately, the SDP planning committee ran out of time and no consensus decision was able to be made. In a follow – up meeting a decision was made to devote a future meeting to alignment between the various working groups.