CDF at a Glance CDF New Model October 2011 CDF Learning Forum Dec 1, 2011 View pdf View/download image | PDF (12mb) CDF 2009 presentation (High quality) Carlington Steering Table CDF 2009 (low res) CDF Launch Overbrook-Forbes CDF Launch Carlington (Video) CDF Launch Somerset West CDF Launch Bayshore Video | Album Newsletter Dec 08: English | French Latest Newsletter: English | French A thorough research of various community development models led the City of Ottawa to identifying the need for a strategic focus and a common approach to community engagement for addressing local needs through building on strengths of the neighbourhoods.
The City also realized that often what is missing in supporting community engagement is availability of resources, which need to be coordinated. Best practices, successes, challenges and other knowledge about community development need to be shared and transferred. The City looked at the need for community development champions for promoting, leveraging and advocating on behalf of a community engagement initiative.
In 2007, the City of Ottawa went through extensive consultations with Community Health and Resources Centres in Ottawa, researchers, community development specialists, funding agencies and other service providers and key stakeholders. Putting together the identified key themes led to the development of Community Development Framework (CDF) as a model to support the grassroots community engagement initiatives in early 2008.
The goals of the framework include:
- Increase neighbourhood capacity to enact positive change
- Improve planning and service delivery to achieve neighbourhood-defined goals
- Improve health of individual residents and their neighbourhood
- Increase neighbourhood safety and perception of safety
- Promote sustainability of positive change at the neighbourhood and systems levels
- Focusing on neighbourhoods with an identified need
- Supporting a common community engagement process on the ground
- Ensuring partners from various sectors have an opportunity to contribute to solution building
- Evaluating impact and progress
- Celebrating successes and share information
- Keep going
The Community Development Framework (CDF) brings together residents, service providers, agencies, researches and funders to build on the neighbourhoods strength and improve at-promise neighbourhoods in the City.
The system level tables operate collaboratively to build a system of supports for the grassroots neighbourhood initiatives.
The CDF approach is based on the four key guiding principles – Collaboration, Coordination, Community Participation and Leveraging of Resources – which are inherent to the No Community Left Behind (NCLB) strategy and community engagement model which has been successfully implemented in South East Ottawa Since 2004. The NCLB follows the most common and effective community engagement process that starts with community mobilization, neighbourhood assessment and leads to prioritization planning and evaluation on a consistent basis.
The CDF facilitates focusing on neighbourhood identified priorities. It brings all stakeholders together to determine the challenges facing each neighbourhood, to share ideas and successes and to coordinate a plan to address residents' needs. Focusing on partnership and collaboration allows for services to be tailored to fit the needs of a particular neighbourhood.
Unlike isolated, time bound community development projects, the CDF provides an opportunity, a way of working for leveraging various approaches and traditions to community development and joining hands to work with the community.
To maximize the return on investment, the collaborative approach of CDF helps integrate isolated initiatives and support the community development work that is already underway in various parts of the City for addressing the social determinants of health, safety issues, access to services, housing, green space, food sources, recreation, etc.
It all starts at the neighbourhood level where residents, together with community partners, identify the strengths and gaps in their neighbourhoods and create action plans to address those gaps.
Community Health and Resource Centres (CHRC) are playing the key coordination and implementation role. CHRCs connect what is occurring in the neighbourhood to the systems level where municipal, resource and knowledge transfer supports are available.
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© 2008-09 City of Ottawa and Partner Agencies
Collaboration, Coordination, Community Participation and Leveraging of Resources
