The following is a reflective entry by Christine Ogley, a new Research Assistant with MMP.
November is turning out to be a very busy month. MMP has many different projects on the go, some of them becoming active at the same time. We are working on the Digital Storytelling project in earnest. I myself am organizing the first community consultation/workshop.
I have to say that this month’s CAB meeting was one of the most animated CAB meetings I’ve seen. I don’t know how the meetings have been over the course of the past two years, but I can attest that the most recent was energetic, active, and full of good ideas. One of the things that generated a lot of active discussion was the upcoming community consultation in Kitchener-Waterloo.
Planning the community consultations is exciting for me. Having been a front-line service provider, it’s a chance to bridge the gap between my present academic studies and the everyday work of organizations, networks, and people working at the ground level. It’s an opportunity to break out of the sort of academia that seems far-removed from practice, and full of jargon. It’s also an opportunity to hear other parts of survivors’ stories and form a larger picture. While you learn parts of a survivor’s story as a service provider, essential parts are sometimes left out.
I’m not a typical researcher. In fact, despite participating in this research project as my masters of social work placement, I don’t identify as a researcher. I have more experience in front line service than in research. I chose to be a part of this research project because it isn’t ordinary research – it’s Participatory Action Research (PAR.)
PAR isn’t traditional research. PAR consults with the community outside of data collection, and sees knowledge exchange as multi-directional. It gives back to the participants that provide the data any research project needs to survive.
In the past two years, MMP has interviewed women with precarious status, created and ran a Solidarity Group – at the suggestion of migrant women, and co-facilitated a workshop that looked at ways to improve shelter services for women with precarious status.
All of these activities are important for PAR. Another crucial feature of PAR is the involvement of a Community Advisory Board (CAB.) The CAB has as its members: service providers, community members, survivors (who are also community members) and other researchers/analysts. The Community Advisory Board meets at least four times a year, with interested CAB members meeting far more often to discuss specific research activities and projects. Giving us feedback and direction, the CAB also helps to generate many new and interesting ideas.
As a new addition to the MMP research team, this month’s CAB meeting was my first opportunity to see a very lively CAB meeting. Seeing the enormous amounts of energy and feedback, I had the sense that this phase of the research is important to people, and can make a real impact. It was also great to engage in healthy discussion, and see information flowing back and forth, bringing our knowledges together.
Among other topics, we talked about the role that shelters are playing in filing claims, as the timelines to file documents and apply for status are drastically reduced. We talked about the difficulties that women are having getting their children into schools – despite the existence of laws and protections meant to ensure that all children attend school, regardless of immigration status. We talked about service providers’ experiences with different research projects – their disappointments, their successes, and their expectations for honest dialogue. We also had an animated discussion about the possibilities for our Digital Storytelling project – its scope, focus, and character.
In CAB meetings, as well as in the workshops, we want to generate dialogue. Active discussion is not only a way to measure our relevance as a research project, but it’s also a way to bring people together. So much is happening in immigration policy – fundamental, life-changing policy changes – and yet, as a society, we haven’t reached a critical mass of discussion. There are too many changes for most people, even lawyers and policy analysts, to take into account.
While the GTA has seen many workshops, trainings and panels recently, with the huge scope of the recent immigration changes, and the hugely negative impact they will have on so many people, we need more. People are starting to move on from what are the changes? to what do we do about them? While we’re busy informing each other of C-31, C-11 and so many other policy changes, we have an opportunity to identify our allies, share resources, work together, and organize for change.
-Christine Ogley