On May 15, 2013, over 85 people working in the mental health & addictions sector attended a Niagara-wide forum at the Welland Community Wellness Complex, to:

• Learn about environmental scan research done to describe the mental health landscape in Niagara;
• Review and provide ideas about building blocks for a Niagara Mental Health and Addictions Charter; and
• Engage in the process of building the Charter.

Click here to download forum background documents:

• Highlights – The Mental Health Landscape in Niagara, April 2013 (4 pages, pdf)
• The Mental Health Landscape in Niagara, April 2013 – full Environmental Scan (81 pages, pdf)

• Senior Research Associates,
• Community Research Associates, and
• Student Research Associates.

Niagara Connects is a Niagara-wide network for collaboration, planning, learning, innovation and community action toward a stronger future for Niagara. Our mission is: “Generating knowledge that drives community action”

Guiding Principles:

• Community strengths, research, and evidence are linked in order to plan for a stronger Niagara,
• Different interests are engaged to work together mobilizing for change; and
• Research and activities are guided by communities.

Our mandate is to bring community leader/expert opinion and researchers together to formulate research questions, facilitate research, interpret recommendations, and engage the Niagara-wide community in resulting action plans.

We link community researchers and academic-affiliated researchers with the Niagara-wide community to allow for the intersection of academic and community-based knowledge and expertise, to generate collaborative and meaningful research.

Currently we are establishing a pool of researchers who are able to respond quickly and nimbly to emerging issues and concerns in the community by applying an evidence-based lens, and allowing for generation of new knowledge to advance scientific evidence. These people will focus on collaboratively-generated research to aid in policy development and inform evidence-based planning that is rooted in relevant, reliable Niagara-focused data.

Click the following to download:

• Niagara Connects Call for Research Associates May 2013
• Niagara Connects Research Associates Outline May 2013

Date: Wednesday April 17th, 2013
Time: 8:00 – 11:30 AM EST
Location: Welland Community Wellness Complex
145 Lincoln Street, Welland, ON

The Rowing the Boat Together project offers the opportunity for community service agencies Niagara-wide to collaborate, share knowledge, learn and network.

Along with your Niagara-wide colleagues, you are invited to this in-person forum entitled: Charting Our Course for Change: Steps We Can Take Together. Special guest Kris Akilie from Mainstream Services will present on Person-Centered Thinking in Niagara. You will then have an opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues to advance the model for person-centered service delivery in Niagara and begin building a measurement tool for collective action.

This event is for people working at all levels in Niagara community service agencies including but not limited to front-line Workers, Executive Directors, and Managers.

Eliminating poverty requires an investment in a municipalty’s strategic economic plan which requires the participation of politicians, local business owners and individuals. Doing nothing to help individuals move out of poverty has a large financial impact, she said.

To put poverty into perspective, Mindorff-Facca said the social cost to Niagara is about $277 million per year. That money could provide funding for 1,200 new homes, 648 public transit buses and employ 5,000 people per year with a $55,000 salary, and if invested properly, could aid individuals in obtaining a higher income and leaving poverty behind.

Community Discussion on Poverty to Air on Cogeco SCS article Oct 25 2012

The new policy brief unveiled on September 26, 2012 by the Niagara Community Observatory, in partnership with the Niagara Workforce Planning Board and the Niagara Research and Planning Council, pegs the cost of poverty in Niagara at a staggering $1.38 billion a year.

Poverty’s Heavy Toll – Niagara This Week article Sept 26 2012

The Niagara Research and Planning Council was a partner in preparing the brief.

Human, Economic Cost of Poverty – Niagara Falls Review article September 26 2012

The brief calls for us to focus on an investment strategy that emphasizes development of people as a key economic development driver for Niagara.  When you read the brief, you will see that what it’s really talking about is a better quality of life and stronger future for all of Niagara.  It provides a clear formula for us to think and invest in a new, more efficient way.

Think about Niagara’s economic development as a simple equation:  A + B = C, where:

“A” is a more vibrant, globally-connected, economically sustainable Niagara, which could be expressed as our ‘gross domestic product’;

“B” is development of people, measured in indices of wellbeing, such as living standards, education, healthy populations, etc. (see Canadian Index of Wellbeing);  and

“C” is the presence of the highest possible quality of life for everyone in Niagara.

This equation will only add up when we put equal energy into both “A” and “B”.  One is not more important than the other, nor are they mutually exclusive.  Currently in Niagara, our economic development focus is on “A”.  The evidence presented in this policy brief equips us to equally focus on “B” so that we are able to arrive at “C” – better quality of life, Niagara-wide.  In other words, when we get to “C”, we will have reduced the impact of the consequences of poverty for all of us.

The policy brief concludes by illustrating what a poverty reduction investment strategy for Niagara looks like.  It states:

“Much of the evidence that we need to build our strategy exists:  it is organized, well-researched, analyzed and ready to go.  To further inform the strategy, the business sector in Niagara could help to design the investment plan in collaboration with community partners.

The roots of the consequences of poverty are multi-faceted and complex.  Thus, the investment strategy that we undertake in Niagara will require acknowledgement that it, too, will be multi-faceted and complex.  It will require Niagara-wide cooperation, leadership and innovation to achieve our collective return on investment”. 

The Niagara Research and Planning Council is gathering interested community partners to create a Niagara-wide Poverty Reduction Investment Strategy.  For more information, please contact us.

• Increase planning and coordination within sectors:  The Sustainable Niagara plan aims to bring individuals and organizations from across all sectors together around a common vision.

• Increase inter-sectoral development and partnership: Creating a Niagara Collaborative, under the Sustainable Niagara plan, seeks to build a space where groups from across Niagara can collaborate (virtually, or through an organization, or in a shared space) and make connections across all areas of sustainability.
• Reduce poverty: Those who contributed to the Sustainable Niagara Action Plan development also felt that poverty was an issue and wanted to Invest in Niagara’s Poverty Reduction Strategy.
• Create quality employment opportunities and a coordinated economic strategy for Niagara: The economy was a popular action area in the Sustainable Niagara plan with three actions relating to the above suggestion from Living in Niagara. They are: Monitoring the Economic Impacts of the Cultural Sector; Creating a coordinated economic development strategy; and promoting a Buy Local movement in Niagara.
• Focus on children and youth: Strengthening Education for a Sustainable Future, from the Sustainable Niagara Action Plan has a strong tie-in to this section.

The other eight items mentioned in the Living in Niagara-2011 Overall Opportunities Suggested for Action list can be found in longer lists of suggested actions for each of the 8 Sustainable Niagara goal areas.  It should also be noted that the action: Continuing Regional Transportation Planning from Sustainable Niagara is found under the Transportation and Mobility Section of the 65 Suggested Action Steps in Living in Niagara.

In addition to these similarities, there are also a few areas not mentioned in the Living in Niagara Report that were deemed to be Priority Actions within the Sustainable Niagara Action Planning process. These primarily involved Agriculture, the Built Environment, and Green Initiatives. Six other actions that are found in Sustainable Niagara are:

• Energy Management Planning
• Encouraging Green Roofs in Niagara
• Tracking and Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Supporting New Farmers
• Researching and Promoting Precision Agriculture
• Completing our Streets

The Priority Actions defined by Sustainable Niagara inform the work of NRAPC in connecting Niagara-wide community partners to drive the 65 intra- and inter-sectoral action steps suggested by the Living in Niagara-2011 report.

The sum total of both initiatives provides powerful evidence for planning Niagara’s future.  Together, they position the Niagara-wide community to take collective action in building the Niagara Knowledge Exchange, and in measuring our quality of life, in the Living in Niagara-2014 report.

Rowing the Boat Together forum invite Oct 18 2012

Save the Date!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon

A Niagara-wide collaborative forum for front-line Community Service Workers

Where?
Amici’s Banquet and Conference Centre, 2740 Merrittville Hwy., Thorold

Who Should Attend?
Front-line community service workers from across Niagara, who are peer-recognized as leaders in service delivery.

Why is this Forum being held?
A common theme emerged from comments made by both community service workers and Niagara citizens receiving community services, during the July 2011 Social Assistance Review meetings in Niagara. The theme was that Niagara citizens receiving community services would benefit from increased collaboration among service providers, which, in turn could result in positive professional development and learning opportunities for community service workers.

Why Attend?
Dr. John Parboosingh, Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary, will lead Niagara-wide community service workers in a collaborative “Practice Talk” process that better equips participants to work together.

Who is organizing the Forum?
The Niagara Research and Planning Council (NRAPC) is gathering the Niagara-wide community to participate in the Rowing the Boat Together project, which is funded in part by Niagara Region through the Niagara Prosperity Initiative.

Click here to register.

Let’s all pull together!

On June 6, 2012, the Niagara Research and Planning Council hosted an NKE Collaborative Community Working Session, facilitated by two of Canada’s leading Knowledge Brokers, to inform the construction phase of the NKE.  Forty Niagara-wide partners collaborated and exchanged ideas, to define how they envision utilizing the NKE platform.  Together, we came to a major realization:  that the NKE is primarily about people collaborating in a vibrant social space, enabled by online technology and access to relevant,reliable Niagara-focused data.

The Niagara Research and Planning Council’s vision is “Generating knowledge that drives community action”.   Niagara Knowledge Exchange – The Model  outlines the work of the Niagara-wide community in building the NKE.  It defines the ways in which people see themselves utilizing the NKE as a tool for learning, sharing innovations and collaborating for a stronger future for Niagara.

If you would like to be involved in building the NKE, please contact us by e-mail:  info@nrapc.com or phone:  905-688-6236.