RESILIENT CONVERSATIONS TOOLKIT€¦ · Champions are residents who have tremendous commitment to...

RESILIENT CONVERSATIONS TOOLKIT

2 RESILIENT CONVERSATIONS TOOLKIT

why resilient conversations?

Resilient conversations is our way of connecting with the voices, perspectives, and thoughts of Torontonians living in diverse neighbourhoods across this city. At Resilient TO, we developed a Resilient Conversations tool kit so we could more effectively hear from Torontonians, but also so that Torontonians had the means and the tools to more effectively hear from each other. As we enter the final stages of the City of Toronto’s Resilience strategy development process, we want to be sure that we are hearing from and learning from our city. The toolkit and the conversations it helps convene are one way we hope to do this.

The Resilient Conversations Toolkit gives individuals, organizations, and institutions the language, means, and opportunity to convene their own Resilient Conversations. By using the tools to have small group discussions across this city we can help one another reflect deeply on what it means to build a more resilient Toronto.

The Resilient Conversations that you host across this city using this toolkit will form the foundation for what we believe will be a unique strategy that offers new ways to think about this city’s future. Take this toolkit, use it, question it, and share your learning and experiences with us.

Sincerely,

The Resilient TO Team

Resilient conversations is our way of connecting with the voices, perspectives, and thoughts of Torontonians living in diverse neighbourhoods across this city. At Resilient TO, we developed a Resilient Conversations tool kit so we could more effectively hear from Torontonians, but also so that Torontonians had the means and the tools to more effectively hear from each other. As we enter the final stages of the City of Toronto’s Resilience strategy development process, we want to be sure that we are hearing from and learning from our city. The toolkit and the conversations it helps convene are one way we hope to do this.

The Resilient Conversations Toolkit gives individuals, organizations, and institutions the language, means, and opportunity to convene their own Resilient Conversations. By using the tools to have small group discussions across this city we can help one another reflect deeply on what it means to build a more resilient Toronto.

The Resilient Conversations that you host across this city using this toolkit will form the foundation for what we believe will be a unique strategy that offers new ways to think about this city’s future. Take this toolkit, use it, question it, and share your learning and experiences with us.

Sincerely,

The Resilient TO Team

RESILIENT CONVERSATIONS TOOLKIT 3

The Resilient Conversations project was produced through a co-development partnership between ResilientTO and Center for Connected Communities (C3) and in consultation with the City of Toronto’s Social Development Finance and Administration (SDFA) Division. The co-development of this toolkit process was primarily co- led by the Center for Connected Communities Local Champions. The Local Champions are residents who have tremendous commitment to building their neighbourhoods and to sharing resources and ideas across neighbourhoods to weave together a stronger Toronto. Each of the Local Champions brought a wealth of knowledge, experience, expertise, and training to the creation of the resilient conversations toolkit.

The co-authors include: Mussarat Ejaz, Donna Yong, Safia Parveen, Feroza Mohammed, Joanne Griffith, Suganthine Sivakumar, Fazilatun Nessa Babli, Miriam Hawkins.


Table of Contents

01 / INTRODUCTION 6

02 / CREATING RESILIENT CONVERSATIONS 11

03 / RESILIENT CONVERSATION TOOLKIT: THE 6 TOOLS OF RESILIENCE 13

04 / COMBINING TOOLS: SHORT CONVERSATIONS 21

05 / CLOSING THOUGHTS 31


01 / INTRODUCTION

RESILIENCE & CITIES

Toronto is one of the fastest growing, most diverse cities in the world.

But like other global cities, Toronto’s growth is paired with significant challenges. Inequality is growing, especially between those living in downtown neighbourhoods and in the inner suburban neighbourhoods. And Toronto’s changing climate will mean more extreme weather, which will be felt most by residents. We need to create strategies that challenge our growing divide so we can be a better, fairer and more cohesive city.

The City of Toronto’s first Resilience Strategy will help us do just that. By drawing on the strengths, assets, and resources of our neighbourhoods, we will create a plan to prepare Torontonians for whatever changes the future may have in store for us. With the support of 100 Resilient Cities (www.100resilientcities.org), we are building a citywide Resilience Strategy to ensure Toronto is inclusive, equitable, liveable, prosperous, and ready for the future.

We want to learn more about how residents across this city survive, adapt, and thrive in the face of significant challenges. We believe that in those stories and thoughts are answers to our city’s biggest resilience questions.

The Resilient Toronto toolkit is an invitation to engage in resilient conversations that imagine a better and more prepared Toronto for all of us.

WHAT IS RESILIENCE?

How do we prepare the people, communities, businesses, and institutions of Toronto to survive, adapt, and thrive no matter what kinds of challenges they experience, now and in the future?

This is the key question we’re trying to answer at ResilientTO as we develop Toronto’s first ever Resilience Strategy.

In Toronto, we experience two kinds of challenges: acute, climate-related shocks are sudden, sharp events that threaten the immediate well-being of Toronto; and more chronic stresses, or daily challenges that weaken the fabric of Toronto, and weaken the ability of Toronto to bounce back in response to a shock.

By developing the capacity to respond to both shocks – like an ice storm or flooding, and stresses – like a lack of affordable housing or increasing income inequality, a city becomes better equipped to ensure the safety and well-being of its entire population, now and in the future.

We want to determine what communities and neighbourhoods need to do to reduce the potential damage of shocks and find new ways to challenge and transform our chronic stresses.

Resilience is a web and our work is to re-weave the city in ways that make it more equitable, just, and ready for the unexpected. We don’t only want to bounce back quickly; we have the collective capacity to bounce back better if need be. We think this is what resilience is all about.

Lead

ersh

ip &

Strategy Health & W

ellbeing

Infrastructure & Environment E

conomy &

Soc

iety

Figure 1. The 100RC resilience framework identifies 4 key components of resilience: a) Leadership and Strategy; b) Health and Well Being; c) Economy and Society; and d) Infrastructure and Environment.


Figure 2. The Resilience Challenges were identified during the Preliminary Resilience Assessment (PRA) phase of ResilientTO engagement process. The figure provides a preliminary snapshot of Toronto’s shocks and stresses.


WHAT IS A SHOCK AND STRESS?

When ResilientTO conducted the Preliminary Resilience Assessment (PRA) we identified a number of shocks and stresses that have affected and will continue to affect the shape and growth of Toronto. We called these shocks and stresses resilience challenges.

These challenges are broad themes that reflect city-wide issues. But, each resilience challenge can be boiled down to simple everyday experiences that represent these bigger city-wide issues. In a resilient conversation, a lack of access to housing may be described through residents’ stories of soaring rental costs, unlawful evictions or through accounts of

spending years on affordable housing waiting lists. Thoughts about creeping poverty and inequality may be expressed through accounts of growing grocery bills and lack of access to affordable healthy foods. Perspectives on ice storms and heatwaves may be described in stories that recount lack of support in the midst of crisis, or long stretches without power with no promise of relief in sight. Community stresses and shocks are the everyday experiences and stories that give us insight into the big city-wide issues we aim to tackle and transform through the creation of the Resilience Strategy.

FLOODING HEATWAVES BLIZZARDS & COLD SNAPS

POWER OUTAGES

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

POVERTY & INEQUALITY

ACCESS TO HOUSING

AGEING INFRASTRUCTURE

GETTING AROUND

LONG-TERM MUNICIPAL FINANCIAL STABILITY


BUILDING NEIGHBOURHOOD RESILIENCE

Neighbourhoods are the places where our city’s resilience is built and tested. A strong resilience strategy must speak to and reflect the perspectives of residents, groups, and actors living in diverse neighbourhoods across this city. Our neighbourhoods reflect back to us some of our city’s greatest strengths and most real challenges.

Building resilience is about remapping and reimagining our neighbourhoods through a resilience lens.

Building resilience calls on us to take stock of our assets, capabilities, resources, and relationships in order to identify actions and strategies that build on what we have. We also need to take stock of our common vulnerabilities, persisting challenges and concerns. Doing this helps us better understand how our resilience gets tested and what makes us resilient today.

Resilience building is also about identifying the gaps in our neighbourhood networks, supports, and services so we can create the opportunity for more cohesive responses to unexpected shocks. The more we understand and reimagine our neighbourhoods from this standpoint the more ready we can be. A more cohesive city is a more resilient city.

This work is not easy, and calls on us to think in new ways about the places we call home. The beginning of resilience building is to first understand our communities, neighbourhoods, and networks as best we can.


DISASTER MANAGEMENT VS RESILIENCE: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Resilience is a way of combining disaster preparedness with all of the other work we do to ensure that our communities are healthier, more cohesive, equitable, and prosperous. The idea behind resilience is that healthier, more cohesive, equitable neighbourhood can recover faster after an unexpected shock.

TRADITIONAL DISASTER PREPAREDNESS APPROACH

NEIGHBOURHOOD RESILIENCE APPROACH

Individual households and their readiness to respond to emergencies

Community members working together to respond to and recover from emergencies

Disaster-Specific Functions Merging of other community efforts that build social, political, economic health and well-being

Government’s response in the first few days and weeks after a disaster

Diverse network of governmental and non-governmental organizations engaged in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disaster

Emergency plans and supplies only Collaboration and engagement of the whole community and stake-holders for problem-solving

Self-sufficient individuals in households Whole systems community approach that relies on strong relationships between neighbours, local organizations and informal groups, government agencies and services

Adapted From: Uscher-Pines, L, Chandra,A., Acosta, J., The Promise and pitfalls of community resilience. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2013 Dec; 7(6):603-6

Figure 3. The CUI Placemakers event focused on exploring “Inclusive Resilient Growth”. Photographs courtesy of Oyan Vassell.


02 / CREATING RESILIENT CONVERSATIONS

WHY A TOOLKIT?

The Resilient Conversations Toolkit will help residents, community actors, and groups convene and hold conversations in their neighbourhoods about resilience. We believe that small conversations in communities will help us get closer to the day-to-day of resilience building. This tool kit helps that process along. With it we want to:

Communicate the meaning of ‘resilience’ and how it relates to issues of social inequity and climate change (Stresses & Shocks)

Increase awareness of resilience and Toronto’s resilience challenges in communities

Promote neighbourhood thought and reflection on chronic stresses that test local resilience

Promote neighbourhood thought and reflection on the potential effects of unexpected shocks on neighbourhood resilience

Generate bold resilience-building actions for the City’s Resilience Strategy


WHO IS THIS TOOLKIT FOR?

The Resilient Conversations toolkit is meant for anyone that is moved to host resilient conversation and contribute to the creation of the City of Toronto’s first resilience strategy.

Non-profit Staff

Frontline Workers

City Staff & Stakeholders

Community Based Organizations

Faith-Based Groups

Citizens/Residents

Tenant Groups & Representatives

Neighbourhood Librarians

We want everyone and anyone to pick up this toolkit, host conversations, and share what you hear with us at ResilientTO.

PRINCIPLES OF ENGAGEMENT

Resilient Conversations are guided by our broader engagement principles that we apply to all of our public encounters. We want to ensure that participants feel listened, too, respected, and valued. The principles below help guide our approach to hosting resilience conversations:

Be honest

Invite everyone

Be innovative

Promote learning

Listen

Help to strengthen communities

Pursue partnerships

Make it fun

CONVERSATION

TOOLS

1

2

3

4

5

6

Figure 4. The Resilient Conversations Tools helps move neighbourhood conversations from awareness and local analysis to vision creation. Each tool brings something different to the process and aims to promote a rich and in depth dialogue.


03 / RESILIENT CONVERSATION TOOLKIT. THE 6 TOOLS OF RESILIENCE

Raising awareness &

sharing stories

Building relationships &

trust

Resilience mapping

Knowing our past: A history of stresses &

shocks

Revisiting our stories: New

insights, thoughts & reflections

Creating a resilience vision:

Proposals, ideas & actions

The six tools presented in this kit represent the foundation of ResilientTO’s Resilient Conversations approach. They are a way for community actors, not-for-profits, residents, and municipal staff to convene and create rich discussions that can help us better understand the landscape for resilience and better plan for a more resilient city. Each tool in the toolkit is designed to surface a unique set of neighbourhood insights, perspectives, and wisdom.

These tools are also a process in themselves that, if applied as a whole, can guide participants through important and enlightening conversations about our city and its future. Alternatively, these tools can be recombined to create shorter, more focused discussions (See Section 5 Combining Tools – Short Conversations).


TOOL 1 / RAISING AWARENESS & SHARING STORIES

55 MINUTES

PURPOSE We want to raise awareness about ResilientTO and our work to create the City of Toronto’s first Resilience Strategy. This tool will expose participants to ResilientTO and the concept of resilience as defined by 100RC and ResilientTO.

MATERIALS

Flip chart paper, flip chart stand, tape, markers, ResilientTO Postcard, laptop, projector, screen, and a soft copy of the ResilientTO film.

PREPARATION

The Preparation section should read: “ Prepare the Resilient Conversation Introduction Presentation on flip chart paper. Paste up 3-4 flip charts on the wall and add the heading “Resilience Wall”. Your Resilience Wall is where you will feature participants’ stories. It is physical way to display reflections, stories, and ideas that are created during the conversation. Ensure that the “Resilient Stories” film is ready and can be played quickly and easily.

Step 2: Reactions 15 minutes

• Invite participants to find a partner and share their reactions to the film with another participant.

• Encourage participants to share thoughts, feelings, and impressions. Make sure that the full spectrum of responses are welcome.

Step 3: Plenary Discussion 15 minutes

• Bring everyone together and ask participants to share openly what they took away from the videos and the conversations they had with their partners. Encourage participants to share their thoughts, feelings, and impressions.

Use the following questions:

1. Based on these videos, what is resilience to you?

2. What do these videos say about resilience and resilience building?

Step 4: Present ResilientTO 10 minutes

• Provide an overview of the ResilientTO project/ Strategy Development Process/ and the 100 RC project.

Step 5: Present 100RC Definition of Resilience

10 minutes

• Provide the 100RC/ResilientTO definition of resilience to participants, define stresses and shocks.

• Present the simplif ied Resil ientTO definition of resilience.

• Open up the group for questions about ResilientTO & the definition of resilience.

Step 1: Resilient Stories Film 8 minutes

• Share the ResilientTO & 100 RC videos as an introduction to the session. The ResilientTO video helps articulate the spirit of ‘resilience’ as we understand it and can help bring participants into the conversation.


TOOL 2 / BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS & TRUST: RESILIENT STORIES

45 MINUTES

PURPOSE This exercise will work to build trust and relationships amongst conversat ion par t ic ipant s by encouraging them to write down and discuss their resilient stories and share ‘how’ and ‘what’ makes these stories resilient. Sharing resilient stories is a way to make resilience personal, while also exploring bigger neighbourhood-level issues.

MATERIALS

Flip chart paper, markers, sticky tack or tape, and Resilient Stories post cards (Provided by the ResilientTO team).

PREPARATION

Prepare the Resilient Conversations Introduction Presentation on flip chart paper. Paste 3-4 flip charts to the wall and add the heading “Resilience Wall”. Your Resilience Wall is where you will feature participants’ stories. It is physical way to display reflections, stories, and ideas shared during the conversation.

very different for different people.

Step 2: Resilient Story Creation & Sharing 10 minutes

• On a Resilient Stories postcard, ask participants to write down a safe and publicly shareable resilience story of their own. Stress that this is open to their interpretation, and that thinking freely and sharing honestly is the most important aspect of this exercise.

• Help participants by sharing your own personal or neighbourhood level example of a resilience story. Make sure that is short, to the point, and accessible.

• Encourage participants to think back to the presentation and the definition of resilience presented in the introduction.

• Be clear that there is no judgement and no right answer and that participants will have the opportunity to return to these stories at the end of the conversation.

Step 3: Peer to Peer Story Sharing 10 minutes

• Invite participants to find a partner in the room that they are comfortable sharing their story with. Encourage them to talk about why the story is one of resilience.

Step 4: Start the Resilience Wall 20 minutes

• Invite participants to stand up and paste their stories up on the Resilience Wall. Once done, give participants time to read the other resilience stories that have been pasted to the wall in silence. This will help encourage reflection and provide time for participants to process their discussions.

Step 1: Share Your Resilience Story 5 minutes

• Return to the resilience story you shared in Tool 1 – Step 1 and talk about elements and ingredients that make it a resilience story for you. Stress that what makes it a resilient story for you is not necessarily true for everyone. Resilience can look

Figure 5. Participants in TPRP reflect on city building and neighbourhood planning. Photographs courtesy of City of Toronto Planning.


TOOL 3 / RESILIENCE MAPPING

• Ask for 5 volunteers who are willing to share their resilience stories and to discuss what makes them stories of resilience. Record some of the points or ideas shared on the Resilience wall flip chart in the space around the pasted stories.

Step 5: Remember these Stories 5 minutes

• Close out the session by sharing that these are stories participants will come back to at the end of the session.

55 MINUTES

PURPOSE We want to create an opportunity for communities to think differently about their neighbourhood and its resilience. Neighbourhood resilience can be thought of in terms of both strengths and challenges and can relate to institutions, informal gathering places, schools, services, or programs. This tool encourages participants to think of their neighbourhoods in terms of resilience builders and resilience challenges. This tool helps participants think about their neighbourhood resilience in very physical ways. Participants co-create a resilience map of their neighbourhood, highlighting what makes it resilient, and what challenges its resilience.

MATERIALS

Flip chart paper, markers, and tape.

PREPARATION

Bring together a number of tables and lay out 4 -6 pieces of flipcharts paper for the neighbourhood maps. Tape pages together and create a large canvas for participants to work on. Ensure markers are on the table for participants to use. Have your flip chart paper prepared with the definition and examples of resilience challenges clearly on display.


TOOL 3 / RESILIENCE MAPPING (CONTINUED)

Step 2: Creating a Neighbourhood Resilience Map 30 minutes

• Split participants up into 4 groups.

• Invite 2 Groups (Groups A & B) to add resilience building spaces, places, services, and programs to the map in the colour green.

• Invite 2 Groups (Groups C &D) to add resilience challenges in form of spaces, places, services and or bigger issues that cannot be readily attached to place or space in the colour red.

• Invite a number of participants to draw out important neighbourhood streets that can help create the basis for the maps. Once the streetscape is complete invite groups to start right away.

• Support participants to think in complex ways about their map. Are there spaces, places, services etc that are both resilience building and challenging? Why?

• Make clear that the objective is to think freely and explore the resilience of their neighbourhood.

Step 3: Resilience Map Reflection 15 minutes

• Once complete ask participants to quickly reflect on their mapping exercise and what they’ve learned from the process.

What are their impressions? Do they see their neighbourhood in a new way? What are the questions they are left with? What does this suggest about the resilience of their neighbourhood?

• Reinforce that this is meant to help Resil ientTO learn and to invite communities to think about these issues in new ways. We are not looking for ‘the right answers.’

Step 1: Mapping Resilience 10 minutes

• Return to the definition of Resilience as defined by 100 RC. Direct participants’ attention to the shocks and stresses flip chart paper and make sure everyone understands the ResilientTO definition of resilience.

• Explain to participants the purpose of mapping as an exercise and that they will be mapping institutions/organizations, social spaces and informal gathering places, businesses, schools etc.

• The aim is to identify the things on this map that are:a) Resilience Builders – These are spaces, places, and issues that strengthen, build, and improve our resilience. Example: com-munity health organizations that provide important services or community gardens that bring us together and help us thrive.b) Resilience Challenges – The spaces, places, and issues that test, reduce, or hurt our resilience. In this case think about our shocks and stresses. Example: areas of the neighbourhood that have a history of flooding, buildings that experience routine power outages during storms, buildings that are being lost to gentrification.

• Make clear that this is not precise science and that spaces and places can be both resilience builders and pose real resilience challenges. Example: a building with unsafe elevators that also has strong community spirit and relationships amongst tenants.

• Encourage discussion around these topics.


TOOL 4 / KNOWING OUR PAST: A HISTORY OF STRESSES & SHOCKS

60 MINUTES PURPOSE Many residents hold important knowledge about the history of their neighbourhood and how it has changed. These histories are often made up of events and moments that both tested and built the neighbourhood’s resilience. We want to learn about these histories so we can better imagine a more resilient future. Support participants to create a historical resilience timeline for the neighbourhood. The historical timeline is focused on identifying events in a neighbourhood’s history that tested and or built its resilience.

MATERIALS

Flip chart paper and markers.

PREPARATION

Tape 4 pieces of flipchart paper to the wall. Draw a straight line across the flip chart paper. Write past at one end and present at the other.

• Make clear that this exercise is about exploring the neighbourhood’s resilience history. Emphasize the importance of each participant sharing their own perspectives on an important neighbourhood resilience moment or event.

Step 2: Creating the Historical Timeline 20 minutes

• Give each participant a marker and ask them to identify a moment/event in the neighbourhood history that:

a) Tested neighbourhood resilience, or

b) Built neighbourhood resilience

Ensure that participants include the year and time of year (season/month) that the event occurred, if possible.

Step 3: Reflect on the Historical Timeline 20 minutes

• As a group, discuss the events listed on the timeline and what they suggest about the resilience history of their neighbourhood.

• Discuss whether or not the moments identified reflect or have a connection to any of the stresses or shocks identified in the previous session. Record all of the discussion points on a flip chart entitled ‘Knowing our Past Reflections.’

Step 4: Reflect on the Historical Timeline 10 minutes

• Close the session with a reflection on how this exercise has shaped the participants’ thinking and/or perspectives.

Step 1: Describe the Historical Timeline 10 minutes

• Explain the historical resilience timeline and revisit the broader definition of resilience. Ensure that there is a timeline taped up on the wall with past written on one end and present on the other. If participants would like to put dates on either side then they may do so.


TOOL 5 / REVISITING OUR STORIES: NEW INSIGHTS, THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

45 MINUTES

PURPOSE This activity is a tool for reflecting on what has been learned through the resilient conversations process and requires participants to revisit their original resilience stories (Tool 2- Building Relationships & Trust). The stories and insights shared during Tool 2 become the baseline for reflecting on how far the group has come.

MATERIALS


• Ask participants to share how their stories did or did not change, and if there is a new story they would like to share.

• Encourage participants to think about and discuss if the change in their stories shaped the way they think about their shared story of their neighbourhood’s resilience. Use the following question to instigate conversation: “How have the lessons we’ve learned today impact our thinking about our neighbourhood’s resilience story?”

• Invite participants to write down a new personal or neighbourhood resilience story on a new Resilience Story Post Card. Ask them to base their choice of a new story on what they have learned through this resilient conversation. Some may decide to rewrite and or reframe the first story they wrote. Then ask each participant to tape their new post cards on a separate part of the ‘Resilience Wall’.Invite a few participants to share their new neighbourhood resilience stories and encourage them to share their new perspectives on neighbourhood resilience with the group

Step 4: Creating a Neighbourhood Resilience Story 15 minutes

• Invite participants to write down a new personal or neighbourhood resilience story on a new Resilience Story Post Card. Ask them to base their choice of a new story on what they have learned through this resilient conversation. Some may decide to rewrite and or reframe the first story they wrote. Then ask each participant to tape their new post cards on a separate part of the ‘Resilience Wall’.Invite a few participants to share their new neighbourhood resilience stories and encourage them to share their new perspectives on neighbourhood resilience with the group.

Step 1: Reflecting on Resilience Learning 10 minutes

• Open a discussion about participant’s reflections on what they have learned through this conversation so far and how it has shaped their perspectives on resilience.

Step 2: Returning to the Resilience Wall 10 minutes

• Ask participants to return to the resilience wall to collect their stories. Encourage participants to reflect on their stories with their partners and to consider how their understanding of resilience has changed as a result of their conversations so far. Is there anything they would like to change or add to their story as a result of this expanded understanding? Is there a different, additional story they would like to share?

Step 3: Changing Resilience Stories 10 minutes


TOOL 6 / CREATING A RESILIENCE VISION: PROPOSALS, IDEAS & ACTIONS

50 MINUTES PURPOSE The aim of this tool is to create a shared neighbourhood vision of what a resilient neighbourhood could or should look like in the future. Imagining new and more resilient futures is important. It is the way we engage residents in conversations about what can be done to improve their own neighbourhoods resilience.

MATERIALS


PREPARATION

Set out flipchart paper and markers for participants. Ensure that all of the resilience challenges are clearly displayed for participants to reference.

c) What do you think your neighbourhood will need to be more resilient in the next 10 years?

d) Identify the resilience challenges that are most important to you and discuss how the City of Toronto can better support your neighbourhood to address these challenges?

• Encourage participants to identify ideas or actions that can help strengthen resilience building assets, networks, or supports and address vulnerabilities, challenges, and concerns. Stress that this is not “perfect science” and it need not be “right”, just true to their own perspectives.

Step 2: Reflecting on Resilience Neighbourhood Visions

20 minutes

• Facilitate a discussion around what these resilience building proposals suggest about a new vision for a resilient neighbourhood.

• Record what the participants’ vision for a more resilient city would include on the ‘Resilient Wall.’

Closing Conversations:

• Ask participants to reflect on the resilience stories they wrote personally as they leave.

• Invite each participant to share parting feelings, thoughts, or desires, and to record these in a workbook.

• Make time to discuss feelings, thoughts, and experiences with participants after the session.

• If participants want more information about ResilientTO, or want to share more of their story and or ideas, direct them to www.resilienttoronto.ca

Step 1: Creating a Resilient Neighbourhood Vision

30 minutes

• Split participants up into 4 groups and ask them to discuss ideas, actions, or solutions that they believe will help build their neighbourhoods resilience. Have them record their thoughts on the flip chart paper.

• Encourage the participants to think in terms of the following questions:

a) What are some emerging negative and positive issues/trends (stresses and shocks) that they have noticed in their neighbourhood in the last 3-5 years?

b) How do you see these trends and issues impacting your neighbourhood’s ability to be resilient in the next 10 years?

http://www.resilienttoronto.ca

CONVERSATION

TOOLS

TOOL 1

TOOL 2A

TOOL 2B

TOOL 2C

TOOL 3

Introducing ResilientTO Conversations: Raising Awareness & Sharing Stories

Resilience Mapping

Knowing Our Past: A History of Stresses & Shocks

Resilience Challenges Cafe

Creating a Resilience Vision: Ideas, Actions & Solutions

Figure 6. The Short Conversations process reconfigures the longer approach and creates multiple opportunities for distinct conversations.


Resilient Conversations need to fit into and be responsive to neighbourhood realities. While we want to learn as much as we can about what it means to build resilience, not all have the time for long conversations. We need to create an opportunity for residents with limited time and many commitments to actively and fully participate in resilient conversations to ensure we hear from people who do not often engage with City processes. The combination of tools presented in this section will help stage 90 minute conversations that raise awareness

and help generate neighbourhood resilience challenges and resilience building insights. Too1 and Tool 3 serve as the book ends for the conversation process. Community animators can choose from one of three carousel tools – Tools 2a, 2b, and 2c – that each offer a different dimension to the conversations. Use this short conversation guide to develop your own tailored 90 minute resilient conversation. Each of the tools in short conversations take 30 minutes to complete.

04 / COMBINING TOOLS. SHORT CONVERSATIONS


TOOL 1 / INTRODUCTING RESILIENT.TO CONVERSATIONS: RAISING AWARENESS & SHARING STORIES

30 MINUTES PURPOSE We want to raise awareness about ResilientTO and our work to create the City of Toronto’s first Resilience Strategy. This tool will expose participants to ResilientTO and the concept of resilience as defined by 100RC and ResilientTO.

MATERIALS

Flip chart paper, flip chart stand, tape, markers, ResilientTO Postcard

PREPARATION

Prepare the Resilient Conversation Introduction Presentation on flip chart paper. Paste up 3-4 flip charts on the wall and add the heading “Resilience Wall”. Your Resilience Wall is where you will feature participants’ stories. It is physical way to display reflections, stories, and ideas that are created during the conversation.

Step 2: Resilient Stories 15 minutes

• Based on the presentation and what they have learned, ask each participant to quietly write down a personal or neighbourhood story about resilience on a ResilientTO Stories Postcard. Encourage them to share a safe and publically shareable story. Explain that unless otherwise specified, the stories they share will be used by ResilientTO to inform the strategy and for further public engagement efforts. Ask each participant to draw a star on their post card if they are ok with it being shared publically.

• Help participants by sharing your own personal or neighbourhood resilience story. Make sure that it is short, to the point, and accessible.

• Encourage participants to think back to the presentation and the definition of resilience presented in the introduction.

• Be clear that there is no judgement and no right answer and that they will have the opportunity to return to these stories at the end of the conversation.

Step 3: Reflecting on Stories 10 minutes

• Invite 2-3 participants to share their story. Ask that they share their story and specify what makes their story a resilient story. The number of participants you ask to share will depend on the time you have remaining.

• If the participants are reluctant to speak use the following prompt questions to encourage conversation and reflection:

Step 1: ResilientTO & Resilient Conversations Presentation 5 minutes

• Deliver the ResilientTO – Resilient Conversations Introduction Presentation. The presentation information can be prepared on flipchart paper and taped up on the wall.



How have you had to be resilient?

What were the things that challenged your resilience?

Is the neighbourhood you live in a resilient neighbourhood? How?

• Acknowledge the importance of each participant’s story and perspective and the unique elements of each story. Record some of these insights on the flipchart paper.

• After sharing stories and reflecting ask participants to tape their stories up on the “Resilience Wall”.

• Let participants know that they will all return to these stories at the end of the session.

• Use thought provoking questions to get them thinking as they write.


CAROUSEL TOOLS / 3 TOOLS, 3 CONVERSATIONS

The carousel tools can be used interchangeably in the middle of the conversation to create a unique experience for residents. The carousel tool option will help create diverse 90 minute conversation that are tailored to the needs of the participants and communities. The three carousel tool options are:

1) Resilience Mapping

2) Knowing our Past

3) Resilience Challenges Café

Each tool takes 30 minutes and produces unique insights into neighbourhood resilience. Explore these three tools and select one of the tools for the middle portion of your conversation.

MATERIALS


PREPARATION

Bring together a number of tables and lay out 4 - 6 pieces of flipcharts paper for the neighbourhood maps. Tape pages together and create a large canvas for participants to work on. Ensure markers are on the table for participants to use. Have your flip chart paper prepared with the definition and examples of resilience challenges clearly on display.

35 MINUTES PURPOSE We want to create an opportunity for communities to think differently about their neighbourhood and its resilience. Neighbourhood resilience strengths and challenges can be thought about in terms of institutions, informal gathering places, schools, services and or programs. This tool encourages participants to think of their neighbourhoods in terms of resilience builders and resilience challenges. This tool helps participants think about their neighbourhood resilience in very physical ways. Participants co-create a resilience map of their neighbourhood, highlighting what makes it resilient, and what challenges its resilience.

CAROUSEL TOOLS 2(A) / RESILIENCE MAPPING


CAROUSEL TOOLS 2(A) / RESILIENCE MAPPING (CONTINUED)

Step 2: Creating a Neighbourhood Resilience Map

25 minutes


• Invite 2 Groups (Groups A & B) to add resil ience building spaces, places, services, and programs to the map in the colour green.

• Invite 2 Groups (Groups C & D) to add resilience challenges in form of spaces, places, services and or bigger issues that cannot be readily attached to place or space in the colour red.

• Quickly ask someone in the group to draw out important neighbourhood streets that can help create the basis for the maps. Once complete, invite groups to start right away.

• Make clear that there is a 20 minute time limit and that the objective is to think freely and explore the resilience of their neighbourhood.

Step 2: Resilience Map Reflection

5 minutes

• Once complete, ask participants to quickly reflect on their mapping process and what they see and have learned from the map. What are their impressions? What are the questions they are left with?

• Reinforce that this is meant to help Resi l ientTO learn and to invite communities to think about these issues in new ways. We are not looking for ‘the right answers’.

Step 1: Mapping Resilience

5 minutes

• Return to the definition of Resilience as defined by 100RC. Direct participants’ attention to the shocks and stresses flip chart paper and make sure everyone understands the ResilientTO definition of resilience.

• Explain to participants the purpose of mapping as an exercise and that they will be mapping institutions/organizations, social spaces and informal gathering places, businesses, schools etc.

• The aim is to identify the things on this map that are:

a) Resilience Builders – These are spaces, places, and issues that strengthen, build, and improve our resilience ex. community health organizations that provide important services or community gardens that bring us together and help us thrive

b) Resilience Challenges –The spaces, places, and issues that test, reduce, or hurt our resilience. In this case think about our shocks and stresses ex areas of the neighbourhood that have a history of flooding, buildings that experience routine power outages during storms, buildings that are being lost to gentrification

• Make clear that this is not precise science and that spaces and places can be both resilience builders and pose real resilience challenges ex a building with unsafe elevators that also has strong community spirit and relationships amongst tenants.



CAROUSEL TOOLS 2(B) / KNOWING OUR PAST: A HISTORY OF STRESSES & SHOCKS

• Make clear that this exercise is about exploring the neighbourhood’s resilience history. Emphasize the importance of each participant sharing their own perspectives on an important neighbourhood resilience moment or event.

Step 2: Creating the Historical Timeline

20 minutes

• Give each participant a marker and ask them to identify a moment/event in the neighbourhood history that:

a) Tested neighbourhood resilience

and

b) Built neighbourhood resilience

• Encourage participants to discuss the moments or events they are adding to the historical timeline with one another.

Step 3: Reflect on the Historical Timeline

5 minutes

• Quickly discuss as a group the events that have been listed on the timeline and what it suggests about the neighbourhood’s resilience history. Close the session with your own perspectives on the importance of history and how we understand resilience.

Step 1: Describe the Historical Timeline

5 minutes

• Explain the historical resilience timeline and revisit the broader definition of resilience. Ensure that there is a timeline taped up on the wall with past written on one end and present on the other. If participants would like to put dates on either side then they may do so.

30 MINUTES PURPOSE Many residents hold important knowledge about the history of their neighbourhood and how it has changed. These histories are often made up of events and moments that both tested and built the neighbourhood’s resilience. We want to learn about these histories so we can better imagine a more resilient future. Support participants to create a historical resilience timeline for the neighbourhood. The historical timeline is focused on identifying events in a neighbourhood’s history that tested and or built its resilience.

MATERIALS


PREPARATION

Tape 4 pieces of flipchart paper to the wall. Draw a straight line across the flip chart paper. Write past at one end and present at the other.



CAROUSEL TOOLS 2(C) / RESILIENCE CHALLENGE CAFE

Step 2: Resilience Challenge Café

20 minutes


• Invite each group to identify a resilience challenge that is a real issue in their neighbourhood by either selecting from those presented on the posters, or by identifying a different challenge that they have come up with.

• Ask participants to discuss the resilience challenges they have selected and how they are experienced in their “everyday life and neighbourhoods.” Example: How do residents experience a lack of access to housing in your neighbourhood, How has your neighbourhood been affected by power outages and what happened?

• Ask participants to record the important points of their discussion on the flipchart paper.

Step 3: Reflecting on Resilience Challenges

5 minutes

• Invite participants to reflect on their resilience challenges and why they chose to discuss the challenges they did.

• What did they take away from the conversation?

Step 1: Present ResilientTO Resilience Challenges

5 minutes

• Explain to participants the history behind the resilience challenges and review the existing resilience challenges, explaining what each icon means.

• Ensure that participants understand that resilience challenges include both shocks and stresses. Note: Health, Education, and Safety will be added.

30 MINUTES PURPOSE In 2017, ResilientTO worked with com-munity actors, experts, City staff, and civic organizations to identify some pre-liminary resilience challenges. We want to hear from residents about the chal-lenges we have identified and about what might be missing. The resilience challenge café is designed to give par-ticipants the opportunity to speak about and discuss the resilience challenges they feel most connected to.

MATERIALS

Resilience challenges sign posters, flip chart paper, markers and tape.

PREPARATION

Lay out the resilience challenge sign posters so that participants can clearly see and select the posters they want to speak to.


CAROUSEL TOOLS 2(C) / RESILIENCE CHALLENGE CAFE (CONTINUED)

FLOODING HEATWAVES BLIZZARDS & COLD SNAPS

POWER OUTAGES

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

POVERTY & INEQUALITY

ACCESS TO HOUSING

AGEING INFRASTRUCTURE

GETTING AROUND

LONG-TERM MUNICIPAL FINANCIAL STABILITY

RECALL: TORONTO’S RESILIENCE CHALLENGES


TOOL 3 / CREATING A RESILIENCE VISION: IDEAS, ACTIONS & SOLUTIONS

Step 2: Creating a Resilient Neighbourhood Vision

20 minutes

• Ask participants to get into groups of 2-4 and use a flip chart paper to propose ideas, actions, solutions that they believe will help build neighbourhood resilience.

• Ask them to think about some of the resilience challenges they discussed earl ier. What needs to be built , strengthened, or created to address the challenges they are focusing on.

• Invite groups to imagine a resilient neighbourhood vision by choosing and reflecting on one of the (3) following question options:

a) Discuss what you think the neighbourhood will need to be more resilient in the next 10 years?

b) Discuss the top resilience challenges (stresses and/or shocks) that need to be addressed in the next 10 years to build your neighbourhood’s resilience?

c) Identify the resilience challenges that are most important to you and discuss how the City of Toronto (and its divisions) can better support your neighbourhood to address these challenges?

• Encourage participants to identify ideas or actions that can help strengthen resilience building assets, networks, or supports and improve policies and/or services. Stress that this is not “perfect science” and it need not be “right” just true to their own perspectives.

Step 1: Introduce Vision Making

5 minutes

• Introduce participants to the idea of a neighbourhood vision. Encourage them to imagine a neighbourhood that is better prepared for the meeting of existing stresses and unexpected shocks. Invite participants to imagine a neighbourhood that is both.

30 MINUTES PURPOSE The aim of this tool is to create a shared neighbourhood vision of what a resilient neighbourhood would and or could look like in the future. Imagining new and more resilient futures is a way we engage residents in conversations about what can be done to the city, civil society, and by stakeholders to improve neighbourhood resilience.

MATERIALS

Flip chart paper, markers.

PREPARATION

Set out flip chart paper and markers for participants. Ensure that all of the resilience challenges are clearly displayed for participants to reference.



Step 3: Reflect on Groups Resilience Neighbourhood Visions

5 minutes

• Facilitate a discussion around what these resilience building proposals suggest about a new vision for a resilient neighbourhood.

CLOSING CONVERSATIONS

• Ask participants to reflect on the resilience stories they wrote personally as they leave. If they have any new insights encourage them to write down a new resilience story and leave it behind for the ResilientTO team or go to our Resilient Stories website and share it there.

• Make time to discuss feelings, thoughts, and experiences with participants after the session.

• If participants want more information about ResilientTO, want to share more of their story and or ideas direct them to www.resilienttoronto.ca

http://www.resilienttoronto.ca



05 / CLOSING THOUGHTS

THE PATH FORWARD

The pathway towards developing the City of Toronto’s first resilience strategy must embrace resilience building principles. Complex and unpredictable civic discourse is one way of enhancing the elasticity of our civic connections. It enhances our capacity to publically disagree and or find common ground. It strengthens our ability to engage in substantive conversations with fellow Torontonians that rarely appear in our personal and professional circles. We can get better at travelling into the lives and experiences of neighbours and emerge more aware and enlightened about the City we live in and the futures we need to co-create. Resilience building is not just a series of outcomes but a process with its own principles, values, and approaches. Unconventional civic discourse is one of these essential principles.

Resilient Conversations are one part of our larger engagement strategy. We also recently launched our Resilient Stories that invites Torontonian’s from across the city to share their resilience stories with us. Through our www.resilienttoronto.ca engagement platform we have created a platform for Torontonians to share their thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. We want to hear from residents that have been building resilience and embodying the meaning of resilience for decades. Our aim is to create a ground swell of resilience conversation and story telling that will lead us into a fully inclusive Resilience Strategy development process. Resilient Conversations are one way. We hope you will follow us and walk beside us through this process to the end.

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