Tools for Relationship Building
This week, class discussion turned to the idea of building relationships. Melissa Nicholls pointed out that while “building relationships” is often mentioned in policy frameworks, there is often little substance to this recommendation, as there usually isn’t an accompanying strategy to achieve this objective. I thought this was a very interesting point because while most policy makers accept that building and maintaining relationships is important for policy change and success, I feel that very few of us, myself included, have the tools in our policy toolkits to accomplish this task. Rebecca Hellam echoed similar feelings, stating that few of us can manage to build relationships in our daily lives with our neighbours, let alone anyone else. Furthermore, when policy makers do attempt to “build relationships,” they often go about it the wrong way. We often assume that limited engagement and minimal effort is sufficient to “build relationships” with communities.
For example, our trip to Evergreen Brickworks this week included a tour of their greenhouse, where we met Isaac Crosby, Urban Agriculture Educator and Program Leader at Evergreen. We spoke about land acknowledgements and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. He argued that land acknowledgements should be conversation instead of a statement that is quickly recited from a script and then largely forgotten about. He pointed out that many of us are ignorant of the fact that land acknowledgements are an Indigenous tradition. Furthermore, many Canadians still know very little about the history of the land on which we live and work and of the people whose land we occupy. Instead of bland statements read word for word, land acknowledgements should be used as an opportunity to educate and spark dialogue, which is an important part of the relationship building that is regarded as a prerequisite for reconciliation. Every relationship starts with a conversation, and as policymakers we should be looking for opportunities big and small to create dialogue that can foster to relationship building.
In the afternoon, we visited Lord Landsdowne/DaVinci Public Schools, where we learned about how Evergreen is working with a group of students to develop a new playground for their schools. The field trip really emphasized the importance of meaningful consultation and policymaking with communities rather than for communities. As “experts” policymakers are often inclined to adopt a “saviour complex” where we believe we have all the answers and set out to solve a problem for a community. However, there is no relationship building in this approach, which alienates the community from the policymaker and vice versa. In comparison, Evergreen’s approach to working with kids and the community created so many new relationships: between organizations, communities (big and small — for example Lord Landsdowne kids spoke about getting to know DaVinci kids), and individuals. Therefore, meaningful consultation and policymaking with communities are great tools for building relationships.
As an aside, I asked the kids why adults should listen to kids more, and they said it is because we have “unmoulded” and “fresher” brains to look at problems from different perspectives. For a feel-good article about the power of kids to create change thanks to their “fresher” brains, read this:
