WHAT’S NEW AND EXCITING

CND PILOT: MAPPING COMMUNITY ASSETS IN O’CONNOR-TEESDALE NEIGHBOURHOOD

The Community and Neighbourhood Development Unit (CND) at Family Service Toronto (FST) has started a pilot project in the O’Connor-Teesdale neighbourhood working to map the assets of the community; not just the “hard” assets such as libraries and recreation centres, but also “soft” assets of social and informal networks which contribute to quality of life. These might include book clubs, seniors meeting and walking groups, or supports within a language group for translation. The idea is to work with people in the neighbourhood to identify and support these assets, map them onto a web-based format for accessibility.

The idea of mapping soft assets is a page taken from our Options program, which is FST’s individualized service for people with intellectual disabilities whereby facilitators work with each client doing this kind of mapping - finding supports which are inclusive of them in the community. Just as Options clients can tap into, and contribute to their own nieghbourhood’s soft assets for citizen participation, so too might other marginalized groups access those important, but not always obvious, social supports which exist in that area. If FST can help and support these soft assets, then more people can access them, such as seniors, youth, and single moms, anyone who may want or need access to them.

O’Connor-Teesdale is an East York/Scarborough neighbourhood in Toronto which straddles Victoria Park and is bounded by “Priority Neighbourhoods” – generally those sections of Toronto with less hard assets and more at-risk youth: Flemingdon Park and Victoria Village, Dorset Park, Eglinton East Kennedy Park and Crescent Town.

Each of these priority neighbourhoods has ANC (Action for Neighbourhood Change) offices which are designed to increase citizen capacity. While O’Conner-Teesdale is not a priority neighbourhood, this United Way funded mapping imitative is designed to help formal and informal groups revitalize and better know their neighbourhood.

The role of FST is to facilitate some coordination of all the initiatives in order to reduce duplication, bridge the neighbourhoods and encourage groups to work together whenever possible. Also, The United Way wants to have these soft assets mapped in order to refer to them when hard assets may be introduced.

Kim Hinton, CND Program Manager: “We believe by working collaboratively and sharing resources, we can better meet our collective goal of serving our community. FST is well positioned for this project, having a Scarborough office with connections in the neighbourhood. We have implemented an outreach strategy to connect with a wide range of stakeholders - grass roots groups, non-profit organizations, associations, local businesses - to be part of this planning process.”

What are the hopes for this program? “Building inclusive communities!”, says Kim. Further, this pilot will test the concept of “open mapping process”; whether a mapping process makes these assets more accessible for all people.

How will asset mapping look? Our web-based map will illustrate hard and soft assets, gained from the ANC groups, United Way, City of Toronto, our own stakeholder process, “which will show everything we know about the neighbourhood” says Kim Hinton, Program Manager. By using specially designed software for this purpose, we will pilot a virtual “open mapping process”, whereby people are able to upload new assets and track changes quickly.

This process goes beyond the use of directories which are expensive to print and difficult to update. Look out for this exciting new project map on our website. If you want to learn the skills, join us! We welcome interested volunteers or people from the neighbourhood who want to participate.

Contact Kim Hinton, Community and Neighbourhood Development Manager at: 416.586.9777 x425

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