Vibrant Lethbridge A Pro-Inclusion and Poverty Impact Reduction Strategy Sub-committee Minutes Thursday April 28, 2011 - 12:00

00 noon 1:00 p.m. Location: 5th Floor Meeting Room, City of Lethbridge Attending: Renae Barlow (Chair) Jeff Carlson Steven Pedersen Sarah Amies Erin Pocal Charlene Davidson Regrets: Diane Randell Bob Campbell Bob Cooney Obed Maurice Charles McKillop Jacinda Weiss

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Welcome and Introductions 1.1 Welcome Sarah Amies, Erin Pocal and Charlene Davidson as new members of the working committee. We now have the maximum number of committee members required to move forward as a working group no more committee membership recruitment is necessary. Approval of Agenda 2.1 Items added New Business: o Add Update on FCSS Meeting in Medicine Hat Jeff Carlson o Upcoming InterCity Forum in Edmonton May 13 o Upcoming Council Presentation in August Approval of Last Meeting Minutes: March 31st, 2011 not available will bring forward at next meeting

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Business Arising/Follow up 4.1 Education Opportunity with Paul Born May 6 in Calgary (or here) and David Stroh and John McGah (Systems thinking) in June. Update Diane has continued to investigate how we can coordinate a coach from Tamarack Institute to facilitate our strategic planning sessions we well as have a strategies meeting with David Stroh and John McGah. So further to this, Action Diane determined that Paul Born is unavailable to visit Lethbridge during his visit in May. Required: However, Liz Weaver also of the Tamarack Institute may be available May 28 th (she is in Tentative Lethbridge facilitating at a PDD conference). Diane will follow up to see if she could SAVE THESE accommodate this. It is realized that May 28 th is a Saturday however this would be an DATES! excellent opportunity (and maybe the only) for the committee to get some significant help with Times: TBD developing our comprehensive strategy using the Tamarack framework. John McGah and Sat - May 28 David Peter Stroh may also be available to us in June (perhaps the 9th) regarding systems Thurs - June 9 thinking approaches. This meeting would nicely dovetail with our strategic planning work further enhancing our efforts to have a clear and well thought out strategy to address poverty in Lethbridge.

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Budget. The budget allocation for this sub-committee is $30,000. Of this, $5,000 has been allocated to the Inter-City Forum on Social Policy as part of our participation in this provincial initiative. This funding will be used to help garner resources to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for poverty impact reduction in Calgary. Blog Updates: New name new web address: www.vibrantlethbridge.blogspot.com New Resources to Share: Trauma and It's Role in Poverty; Deprivation Index; Low Income in Lethbridge A Profile - released April 21, 2011; Update Report to the CSD Committee Friday, April 15 (at end of these minutes)

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New Business 5.1 Review Tamarack Resource - A Compendium of Poverty Reduction Strategies and Frameworks Highlights discussion Review of Reflection Questions: Is my community poverty reduction effort guided by an explicit working definition of poverty and poverty reduction? If so, what is it? Action Required: There was a brief discussion here more about getting familiar with the resources and Committee tools we will be using to create our comprehensive framework Members are
asked to revisit the Updated Action Workplan on the blog for prep for next committee

5.2 Update on FCSSAA South Region Meeting and Ministry Planning in Medicine Hat held April 27th Jeff Carlson - Jeff Carlson and Bob Campbell attended and represented our region 5.3 Upcoming InterCity Forum in Edmonton May 13 Diane Randell and Jeff Carlson will be attending 5.4 Upcoming City Council Presentation in August. It is expected this committee will present to City Council at the end of August. We must have the report ready by July 15th to be circulated to council in good time. 5.5 Community Support: There was discussion among committee members of how to garner community support as we move forward with our plans. It was felt to be important that we start communicating with community groups- that have a vested interest in our poverty impact reduction strategies - about what we are doing and how we will be involving them as we move forward. For example, talking about the Vibrant Communities nationwide initiative, Albertas contribution and what Lethbridge is doing right now with the formation of this committee. Then when we are ready to move forward with our initiatives, we will already have the community onside.

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Action Required: Committee members are asked to come forward with names of groups and contact information for the next meeting. At the next meeting, we will talk about a strategy of getting in touch and spreading the word to garner support as we move forward.

6.0 Next Meeting Date Thursday May 12th, 2011 12:00 1:00 Lunch will be provided - Location City Hall Meeting Room TBD.

Vibrant Lethbridge Update Report to CSDC April 29, 2011 To: Community & Social Development Committee From: Vibrant Lethbridge - A Pro-Inclusion and Poverty Impact Reduction Strategy - Sub-committee Chair: Renae Barlow Committee Members: Obed Maurice, Bob Campbell, Charles McKillop, Jeff Carlson, Robert Cooney, Rohan Crown, Steve Pedersen, and Charlene Davidson. Waiting for confirmation on two other potential members as well! (verbally added Erin Pocal and Sarah Amies as most recent members) _____ The Vibrant Lethbridge sub Committee has been very busy! The committee has met biweekly since forming in February and we are in the process of building a framework to address an impact poverty reduction strategy in our community. The terms of reference presented to the CSDC committee in February outline the approach we are taking (emphasis on adopting the Poverty Reduction Strategies of the Tamarack An Institute for Community Engagement) and highlights some of the initial time commitments for committee members. We decided that the working group would ideally consist of 10 members that would include direct stakeholders (those providing services related to areas of poverty) and indirect stakeholders (community members at large and the business community). Joe Ceci, Alberta coordinator of the Inter-City Forum on Social Policy visited Lethbridge on March 8th & 9th and met with our subcommittee. It was a great opportunity to discuss poverty impact reduction planning and learn about the provincial initiatives currently taking place (now a coalition of 19 Alberta cities!). We have created an online resource (www.vibrantlethbridge.blogspot.com ) for the sub-committee summarizing the strategic tools we will be using for building the framework. The Home page highlights the Tamarac resources/workplan (3 workshops/podcasts) we are utilizing to build an understanding of the framework we are to develop. The index tabs on the top indicate the Terms of Reference for the Subcommittee, past agendas/minutes and Resources to Share. You will also find information like the Lethbridge Herald article about Joe Cecis visit as well as up -coming events. Moving forward, the committee members will develop next steps at the end of this month as we become increasingly familiar with the comprehensive frameworks/models utilized in other poverty impact reduction strategies across Canada. This is an ambitious undertaking and we hope you will visit our blog often to see what we are up to!