At Home in a Big Small Town - Lynn Randall

In this second post from the 'Notes of a Newcomer' Blog Series, Clara meets with Lynn Randall, who is Director of Social Planning, Policy and Program Administration at the Region of Waterloo.

Click here to read the introduction to the blog series.

Author: Clara Bird

Lynn Randall and I arranged to meet in her office in the Region’s Health and Social Services Building, on Regina Street in Uptown Waterloo. The office building is new, shiny, full of light, and located in the heart of the action. Lynn, who is the Director of Social Planning, Policy and Program Administration, greets me with a warm smile and invites me into her office. I sit down across the desk from her. She has laid out a series of documents for me to take home; they include progress reports, pamphlets and information on some of the initiatives that the Region is currently working on.

Regional government: uniting and servicing a broad and diverse community

Lynn begins by explaining the Regional government to me. She explains that in Canada there are three levels of government: federal, provincial and local or municipal. Over the past decade, the provincial government has been downloading responsibility for social programs to the municipalities, a move that often compromises their ability to provide services, as programs are funded from a finite tax base. Waterloo Region recognized that it needed to organize in order to cope with these greater demands, and the Social Planning Division was created by the Regional government in 1999. Lynn feels that this move filled a gap and has improved the Region’s capacity for social planning and service delivery.

Planning: taking a strategic and long term view of the future

Knowing that I am here to learn more about social innovation, Lynn segues into describing the Region’s strategic focus. According to Lynn, having a strategic plan that guides programming is quite useful. With input from the public, the Region has developed strategic priorities and areas of focus. For the term 2007–2010, these include: environmental sustainability, growth management, healthy and safe communities, human services, infrastructure, and service excellence. Lynn feels this forward looking and strategic approach makes the Regional government more capable of serving this community as well as fostering innovation. When I ask her to explain this to me, she singles out two areas of strategic focus: service excellence and growth management.

People: encouraging dedication, relationships and risk taking

Lynn tells me that as part of its mandate for service excellence, the Region has made a concerted effort to foster a supportive and creative work environment for staff. She explains that people are given the opportunity and the necessary support to take risks.

She also stresses that the Region is blessed with very good leadership. Several of the people on the Board and in executive positions have been in leadership roles for a long time. Lynn feels that people who have an extensive shared history trust each other more and are thus more willing to be flexible and even to go out on a limb together. This helps counter the effects of greater turnover among their provincial counterparts, where new staff may have no memory of local situations and issues. I ask myself whether having the same people in positions of power over a long period of time might actually stifle creativity and new ideas, but I can’t disagree with Lynn’s point that personal relationships can be very powerful in making things happen.

Change: using it to the community’s advantage

The Region’s strategic plan also prioritizes growth management. As Lynn sees it, this means planning for sustainability and making commitments: “You have a responsibility to see things through.” A big part of a sustainable community is an openness to inevitable change. To this end, Lynn tells me that the regional staff are trained in change theory. There is an acknowledgement that change happens, and the staff have been taught to expect it and to manage it. Lynn stresses the importance of timing, knowing when to push and when to hold back: “Timing is everything; you don’t want to introduce change, on top of change, on top of change. It’s about managing change. If you don’t understand it you can’t direct it; you want to be able to absorb change and, when possible, have an impact on how it plays out.”

Internal support for people and growth management for a changing community are two factors that Lynn feels foster the Region’s capacity for innovation; and having them mandated in the strategic plan is an innovation in itself.

Outreach: local workers better represent and serve individual communities

Further, Lynn tells me that the innovation found in the strategic plan extents to the delivery of the Region’s programs. She describes a program developed in consultation with the community called the “Community Outreach Program,” wherein outreach workers are chosen from among local individuals rather than relying on the Region’s employees. The belief is that local workers will be better able to reflect and meet their community’s needs. Lynn describes the Region’s role: “We work with the community to brainstorm ideas, to provide education and resources, and to come up with a model that works. We are out there but invisible. Our goal is to mobilize and equip local people and their organizations or neighbourhoods from behind the scenes—we see ourselves as enablers.”

Input: changes that come from the bottom are more likely to make it to the top

On this point, Lynn is visibly animated. I can tell that she is particularly proud of the extent to which the community is participating in, and contributing to, the Region’s programming. As she says: “There is a huge amount of community input here; we avoid working from the top down. We don’t go out with the authority of the Region and tell people what to do. We go out and ask what we can do to help. Like with the Community Outreach Program or the strategic plan, the community is always consulted. Ideas and solutions come from them.” There seems to be a fundamental belief that if a project is going to work, and if the Regional government is going to make any difference, it needs to be owned by the citizens.

Frankly, I would agree. Although I also know that such intense, long-term consultation and strong sense of ownership may bring its own challenges.

Balance: the down side of managing up

Anticipating my next thought, Lynn continues: “Sometimes this is very straightforward and sometimes it is more complex, even controversial.” She illustrates this for me with the issue of homelessness: “In our community, emergency shelters were often established within the faith and benevolent communities and they grew up organically; places like the House of Friendship or the YWCA. They, of course, bring with them a set of values-based approaches that can be in conflict with new ideas for solutions to the problems. For example, if it’s shown elsewhere that an effective approach to getting people off the streets is to have a “wet shelter” versus a “dry shelter,” there might be objections from faith-based organizations. So, innovative approaches may come up that are accepted and work in other places , but these are not necessarily compatible with our community’s sense of values and identity.”

Further, Lynn tells me, community input sometimes halts progress. I gather from what she is saying that the cost of significant community input is that sometimes a good idea, especially one that involves necessary change, is rejected. This can happen for a variety of reasons but very often is simply human nature’s fear of changing what’s familiar. Those who study innovation have discovered that different types and levels of collaboration are needed at different points in the development of any good initiative; but shifting these gears can be hard to do. Lynn’s comments remind me that it is no easy task to balance extensive community participation with a mandate for innovative growth and change.

Big small town: strong roots and knowing your neighbour

I wonder if this emphasis on community input is a reflection of the community itself. Confirming this intuition, Lynn notes: “People have strong roots here and a sense of having created a good quality of life. There is an expression used to describe this place: “a big small town.” It’s about a sense of the history and belonging, about safety and knowing your neighbours. We have half a million people living in this Region but you don’t get that sense.”

Her musings about the community in some ways echo her descriptions of the Regional government and I ponder the old adage about the chicken and the egg. Does the community flavour the character of the Regional government or do the governing bodies shape the community? I suspect it is the former, but also that the people in the Regional government are particularly good at recognizing their community’s identity, needs and challenges.

Challenges: a community shifting

On that note, I ask Lynn what she feels are the most pressing and difficult obstacles facing this community. Lynn acknowledges that this place is rapidly changing; she mentions more newcomers, more elderly people, increasing urbanization. In particular, Lynn recognizes the challenge produced by the ripple effects of a growing population intersecting with a downturn in the economy. Further, the increasing number of seniors presents difficulties in terms of keeping elderly people healthy and in their homes. As for the Region’s geography, she adds: “We have created a hard geographical boundary so we can have a good balance between urban and rural, but it’s a delicate balance. We have increasing pressures on both sides: the dying business of farming is hard for young people, and core urban areas need to be intensified and revitalized.” She sums up her thoughts: “Overall, we need to become friendlier in terms of the physical, architectural and attitudinal. “

As Lynn has stressed, the Region is aware of current and future challenges and it is trying to balance its response: to be prepared yet flexible; to reward risk, novelty and spontaneity while accommodating the concerns of its citizens; and to maintain long standing connections. I am struck by the difficulty of negotiating these juxtapositions, particularly in the context of a community in transition.

Onward: transitioning to the big while maintaining the small

From our interview, I have an impression of Lynn as an intelligent and thoughtful person. Later, I would realize that her story led to a framework of my own; she has provided me with a foundation for reflecting on my experiences with this place. From Lynn, I gather that this is a community that values its neighbours, the strengths of its ties and traditions, and significant community participation in government. It is also a community that is forward looking, entrepreneurial, risk taking and on the brink of significant change. Its population of 500,000 is about to balloon, making it a metropolis, at least in size. But what then of the “big small town”? Can the Waterloo Region grow and evolve while still maintaining its identity? Is there space for innovations that shake up the status quo? With these questions in mind, I set out to better understand these seemingly contrasting characteristics and dynamics, and what they mean for this Region’s capacity for social innovation and real, durable change.

Click here to read the next post in the 'Notes of a Newcomer' Blog Series

If you are interested in obtaining a hardcopy of the book, please contact the SiG office at 1-519-888-4567, Ext. 32525 or info@sig.uwaterloo.ca

About 'Notes of a Newcomer': The 'Notes of a Newcomer' project began in late 2008 and is both an investigation into social innovation at the local level and an exploration of Waterloo Region specifically. Told through the experiences of Clara Bird, a young person newly arrived in the region, it was also an opportunity for SiG@Waterloo to build, and build upon, its relationships in the local community. As a result of the exploration, a book was published consisting of a series of interviews with community members. Through the ‘Notes of a Newcomer’ Blog Series, we hope to share these stories with you.

FINAL - Notes of a Newcomer.pdf