In April 2009, the Government of Nova Scotia released its poverty reduction strategy – Preventing Poverty and Promoting Prosperity. In this seminar, Brenda Murray, Director, Policy Planning and Research, Community Services and Ulrich vom Hagen, Coordinator of Poverty Reduction discuss details of the strategy and progress being made in Nova Scotia. The provincial strategy builds a vision to 2020 which strives to break the cycle of poverty and create opportunities for all citizens of Nova Scotia by enabling and rewarding work, improving supports for those most in need, focusing on children and coordinating and collaborating change efforts.
Learning Objective:
To learn about and begin to understand the provincial poverty reduction strategy in Nova Scotia
To learn how progress on poverty reduction will be measured in the province
To understand the relevance and importance of community engagement in the strategy
Brenda Murray - Brenda Murray leads the Policy, Planning & Research unit of the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services. Her academic background is in Public Administration and she has spent a substantial amount of time of her career in the Nova Scotia Government. Poverty reduction has and continues to be one of her priorities.
Dr. Ulrich vom Hagen - Dr. Ulrich vom Hagen is the Coordinator of Poverty Reduction and a sociologist. He joined the Nova Scotia Department of Health as Policy Analyst in 2007, went to Labour & Workforce Development in 2008, subsequently worked in the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration, and started as the first Coordinator of Poverty Reduction in October 2009.
Mark Cabaj - Mark Cabaj is a founding Principal of Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement, an organization based in Waterloo, Ontario, focused on assisting people build strong communities through local action.
Mark joined Tamarack in 2002 and is currently the Executive Director of Vibrant Communities – a network of communities and national organizations that use collaborative, comprehensive approaches to substantially reduce poverty within Canada.
Brenda Murray explained that many processes contributed to the development of Nova Scotia’s poverty reduction strategy. First, a standing government committee with representatives from all political parties held a Forum of Poverty. In the fall of 2007, a community-led coalition, representing over 20 different groups, developed a framework for a poverty reduction strategy.
In November 2007, the government of Nova Scotia hosted a facilitated discussion with 25 representatives of non-profit organizations, business and academia to focus on expectations, strategies and priorities for action.
In December 2007, legislation established a Poverty Reduction Working Group (PRWG), with the mandate to present recommendations to government within six months. 1300 Nova Scotians responded to a questionnaire that asked how they would tackle poverty. The PRWG also looked into areas like child care, mental health, housing, minimum wages, drug benefits, transportation, and how the province would pay for the strategy.
In June 2008 the PRWG delivered its report, and community and government organizations were asked to comment on it. In April 2009 the Nova Scotian government released its strategy, titled Preventing Poverty, Promoting Prosperity.
Here, Brenda talks about the role and composition of the Poverty Reduction Working Group, and what it accomplished.
The Preventing Poverty, Promoting Prosperity strategy has four goals:
improving supports to those most in need
enabling and rewarding work
focusing on children and their families
improved collaboration and cooperation
The first goal alleviates poverty, by improving access to necessities. The second reduces poverty by increasing opportunities to work and removing disincentives. The third goal hopes to prevent poverty by breaking the cycle of poverty through supports for children and families, while the fourth seeks to engage others by developing public awareness as well as coordination and accountability across government and society.
There are numerous activities under each of the goals, ranging from tax measures, employment and training supports to supports for families and increases in the minimum wage.
In this clip, Brenda describes one example, a pharmacare program, and talks about how they look for opportunities to leverage federal dollars and existing programs to be part of the strategy.
Eight government departments are jointly responsible for the poverty reduction strategy:
Community Services
Labour & Workforce Development
Health
Health Promotion & Protection
Education
Economic & Rural Development
Justice
Finance
An important goal is to better organize and deliver services - to move from a fragmented menu of programs and services dispersed across the whole of government, that are hard for citizens to understand and find, to an approach that treats “whole clients” by bundling services and providing a single place to access them and common information services.
Brenda explains how they are trying to serve clients with multiple needs in a simpler way in this excerpt.
Uli talked about the balance between a priority on broad based public policies - to ensure there is a strong foundation of fiscal, economic, income support, labour market, health and education policies in place for all Nova Scotians, and policies that respond to the specifics of a certain community.
For example, the cost and availability of suitable housing is a major challenge for low-income individuals and organizations in the Halifax region while in rural areas, transportation is often the biggest challenge. He believes what is needed is a mix of policy approaches – those that are available to all, regardless of place, and those that address the needs of the local community. They also hope to develop a rural/urban lens to help them identify the impacts of policies on different kinds of communities.
Here, Uli talks about how poverty is different in urban and rural parts of Nova Scotia, and how governments can respond.
Because Brenda, Uli and their colleagues believe that poverty is multi-dimensional, they knew that indicators needed to go beyond measuring income.
They have included measures in the strategy that address social inclusion, housing, child care, labour market participation rates for low-income groups, education, access to child care, and public awareness, as well as a range of income measures.
Brenda explains in this clip that the measures will be helpful for monitoring and reporting progress to the public, but they will also serve as criteria or guideposts to judge which actions are helping them get closer to their goals.
Finding the money to move quickly on a poverty reduction strategy can be a challenge for any province. Uli spoke about their hope that some of the changes in the poverty reduction strategy will eventually result in savings. For example, since we know low income people have more health issues than the rest of the population, moving from expensive heath related interventions to more preventative measures should in the long term reduce demands on the health care system, and thus the costs. The overhaul of income assistance programs, to lower the “welfare wall” that keeps people on assistance, could have the same effect.
Brenda concluded with some thoughts about the change in philosophy that will be required to truly reform welfare programs.
Do you think the four goals of the strategy are the right ones? How are the goals different from each other?
What other responses to poverty can you think of that might result in eventual savings, like the health care and income assistance examples given in the seminar?
If you live outside Nova Scotia, what differences do you observe between this poverty reduction strategy compared to governmental poverty reduction strategies in the area where you live?
To reflect on these and other important questions, refer to the Resources and Links below.
Preventing Poverty, Promoting Prosperity - This page provides background and a summary of Nova Scotia’s poverty reduction’s strategy, as well as links to related documents. Access the strategy here.
Framing Poverty as a Complex and Why That Matters - This audio seminar makes the case for framing poverty as a complex issue, describes key features of complex issues, and explores the implications for leading and managing efforts to reduce poverty. Access the seminar here.
Comprehensive Strategies for Deep Outcomes - This audio seminar explains how complex issues, like poverty, where factors are dynamic and inter-related, require comprehensive or ‘joined-up’ solutions. Access the seminar here.
In April 2009, the Government of Nova Scotia released its poverty reduction strategy – Preventing Poverty and Promoting Prosperity. In this seminar, Brenda Murray, Director, Policy Planning and Research, Community Services and Ulrich vom Hagen, Coordinator of Poverty Reduction discuss details of the strategy and progress being made in Nova Scotia. The provincial strategy builds a vision to 2020 which strives to break the cycle of poverty and create opportunities for all citizens of Nova Scotia by enabling and rewarding work, improving supports for those most in need, focusing on children and coordinating and collaborating change efforts.
Dr. Ulrich vom Hagen - Dr. Ulrich vom Hagen is the Coordinator of Poverty Reduction and a sociologist. He joined the Nova Scotia Department of Health as Policy Analyst in 2007, went to Labour & Workforce Development in 2008, subsequently worked in the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration, and started as the first Coordinator of Poverty Reduction in October 2009.
Mark Cabaj - Mark Cabaj is a founding Principal of Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement, an organization based in Waterloo, Ontario, focused on assisting people build strong communities through local action.
