Sue Tiffin updated council on her work since last spring, on the community safety and well-being plan adopted by council in January 2022. She said it had been slightly changed for accessibility online, including a ‘plan-on-apage.’
She added an advisory table meets about every two months and now includes councillors Bob Carter and Jennifer Dailloux, Marg Cox, Nycole Duncan, OPP Staff Sgt. Rob Flindall, Andrew Hodson, Jennifer Mills, Janine Mitchell, Veronica Nelson, Chris Parish, Mike Rutter and Pam Stuckless.
She added they now have working groups for: housing and homelessness, poverty and employment, mental health, substance abuse and addiction, and healthcare and system access. She said the plan has 12 goals and 23 strategies. She added they are working with people in the field already to avoid duplication. They are also further along in having a police services board for the County.
Tiffin said they’d had a first responders’ day, a youth art exhibition and spoken at schools. In June, they launched a community directory survey, there’s a planned onestop hub and a community mobile outreach initiative. Tiffin said they also have started augmentative and alternative communication boards. They also partnered with Service Canada to do outreach in Minden recently. They’ll be back with two events in October and two in November. Service Canada will also be going to Highlands East.
Coun. Murray Fearrey, commenting as a layperson, said of the provincially-mandated plan, “it’s a scattergun approach. What I’d like to know is what the mandate is and how you measure the success? There are so many things we’re involved with here. It’s unbelievable. Like a little bit of everything. I think if we don’t focus on one or two things, you don’t get anything done.”
However, Rutter said one of the reasons the province mandated CSWB plans was, “because there are so many groups doing really good work all over the place in a scatter gun approach. But there hasn’t been a coordination of that work. In our case, it was really evident through the planning process that people weren’t aware that help was there.
“A big part of Sue’s job is to first of all find out what is out there… and then connecting people to it.”
For example, he said there was a recent call about people experiencing homelessness and not knowing whom to connect with. Tiffin was able to put them in touch with the housing outreach officer to find help. Rutter added a plan will also save the County money in the long run.
Carter agreed it’s multi-faceted and requires keeping eyes on goals.
“This is not something you start off and create the committee and the group and you’re done. It’s a much bigger task than that. And I think it’s going to evolve and change over the years.” He said there had been “terrific” progress made and it will become more focused and concrete moving forward.
Dailloux asked about people living in the County where agencies are Muskoka-based. Tiffin said others are grouped with the City of Kawartha Lakes. She said she hopes a community services directory guide going to households emphasizes, “just because it says City of Kawartha Lakes, or Huntsville, doesn’t mean they can’t serve our community members here, too.”
