254826
254081
Nelson  

New role proposed for social development, resilience needs greater depth: Logtenberg

City seeks social insight

The city needs to go further in its investigation of a new city staff position that knits together the patchwork of social services for the city’s disadvantaged, says one city councillor.

Rik Logtenberg said while he supported the intent and vision of the creation of a new social development coordinator — proposed recently by the Nelson at its Best (NAIB) Society — he actually thought the idea did not go far enough.

“By that I mean there is this principle that has been applied in healthcare for years and in emergency services, and the principle is called the right of rescue. We need to respond to the crisis that is right in front of us,” he said.

In the case of emergency, the right of rescue basically spends any amount of resources to deal with that emergency, Logtenberg explained.

“But I think that principle of the right of rescue is becoming overly applied, society-wide, and we have tended to neglect, at the expense of the wholistic community wellbeing and resilience,” he continued.

The city needed to let go of the right of rescue and instead apply a framework based on health resilience, developing community resilience plans, and the way it gets implemented is through a community resilience coordinator, or a resilience department, Logtenberg pointed out.

“It doesn’t cut up the community. It takes a step back and determines that that sub community has so many intersecting relationships,” he said.

“In thinking about the crisis we have in front of us in the next five, 10, 15 years, obviously the climate crisis overwhelms everything. It is the dominant crisis that then creates conditions that all of the other crisis get made way worse. It just continues to compound.

“So if we are to have a social development coordinator, and that position would be focused on this community and coordinating activities in this community,” it needs to take a step back and look at the community as a whole.

Nelson at its Best (NAIB) Society had proposed the creation of a social development coordinator position within the framework of the city to respond to the growing needs of some of the city’s less advantaged residents.

Social issues will continue to manifest in Nelson in the coming years as more and more people struggle to live, or find a place, in today’s economy and political world, said Katie McEwen of NAIB at the last committee-of-the-whole meeting.

“Issues such as homelessness, mental health and substance use crises, and financial poverty have become increasingly complex to address, requiring dedicated expertise in understanding root causes, best practice approaches, coordinating community efforts, navigating funding opportunities, and leveraging partnerships effectively,” she said in her presentation to city council in late December.

Other issues persist and are growing, she added, such as violence against women, isolation (especially among seniors), lack of affordable housing and childcare, racism, health access and support for living with disabilities. Social development coordination is an opportunity to join the individual capacity within the city with organizational capacity to create community capacity, read an NAIB report.

“No one organization, nor local government, can solve the challenges that our future surely holds,” said McEwen.

Similar to the existing city-funded cultural development coordinator role, in the proposed model the coordinator position would require an estimated annual investment of $95,000 – $130,000.

Recently, other B.C. municipalities such as Penticton and Cranbrook have established social development coordinator roles.

The name and scope of the position needed to be amended, said Logtenberg.

“Rather than call it a social development coordinator with this mandate, it would include this mandate, but it would be a resilience coordinator whose job it is to encompass the economic, the environmental and the social wellbeing of the entire community because recognizing all of those things reinforce and impact one another,” he said.

Coun. Leslie Payne put forth a motion to refer the creation of the position to a budget workshop — which happen frequently over the next two months as city council crafts its next fiscal budget — and the motion eventually carried.

“This is an upstream solution to what we are experiencing every day in every sector of our society. The entire community is listed here as to who will be involved,” she said.

“To me, it doesn’t matter what you call it, this is a time where a level of bold leadership is required for the wellbeing of our community.”



More Nelson News