A3: Local Immigration Partnerships - A Model of Creating a Settlement Strategy
This workshop will present the learnings from a regional settlement service planning project in the City of Toronto that will be of interest to the senior staff and Executive Directors of organizations that are participating in Local Immigration Partners (LIPs). For two years a steering committee of seven OCASI member agencies have lead a community planning process in west downtown Toronto with the goal of developing a settlement strategy for a dense urban community. The process involved large forums to bring stakeholders together at six month intervals and multiple working groups, reference groups and consultations in-between to develop and test the findings. More than 60 organizations have participated in the planning process.
The workshop will review the process, deliverables and learnings of the project including the completed settlement strategy. Our model of multi-stakeholder planning will provide ideas and learnings for other partnerships in Ontario. There will be a presentation followed by question and answer period and discussion with a panel. All participants will recieve copies of our strategy.
Bill Sinclair is a social worker from Toronto and the Associate Executive Director of St. Stephen’s Community House, a settlement agency founded in 1962 serving west downtown Toronto. Bill has been the Chair of the West Downtown Settlement Service Planning Project for the past two years.
Marcie Ponte has been the Executive Director of Working Women Community Centre since 1999 and has been active in the immigrant services sector since 1976 with experience at St. Stephen’s Community House, YMCA, Metro Labour Education Centre, and Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre. Marcie is a founding partner of the West Downtown Settlement Service Planning Project in Toronto.
