Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Speak Up
International with Rita Burke
and Elton.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Brown, we have the
opportunity to speak with people
from all over the world.
Today we are back in Canada andwe have no other than Mr Rohan
Thompson.
Rohan is currently the Directorof People and Equity for the
(00:42):
County of Dufferin.
He is a member of the County'sDiversity, equity inclusion
community advisory committee.
Rohan is a social worker andtherapist who runs his own
private practice.
He uses a client-centered,trauma-informed, anti-racist,
stress-based approach.
Rohan has always had a focusand commitment to youth
(01:07):
development and crime prevention.
As we say on Speak UpInternational, we prefer for
guests to tell their own stories.
So that's all I will say nowabout ROHAM, and we welcome you
to Speak Up International.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Thank you, Rita, for
the kind introduction.
Elton, thank you for theinvitation.
Really honored and excited tobe part of this great platform
that you guys have created.
So thank you for letting me bea part of this.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh, it's a pleasure
to have you as part of the Speak
Up International family.
We look for people like you whoare community builders and who
provide stories that inspiresother individuals, hopefully to
help them on their journey,whatever that may be.
(01:58):
So what inspired you to take onthe role of Director of People
and Equity with the County ofDufferin?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, good, first
question.
So I had from a sort ofprofessional perspective.
I was working for the PeelDistrict School Board prior to
the opportunity to come to thecounty.
I had been at Peel DistrictSchool Board for a number of
years and I was starting tothink about other growth
opportunities, right, and thisopportunity?
Here at the county they hadcreated this role the Director
(02:31):
of People and Equity.
It was the inaugural sort ofopportunity for somebody to
compete and be in this role.
They were on the cutting edgeof starting down a new journey
for the organization and waswanting to bring in somebody to
help support that journey.
So yeah, so I thought it was agreat chance and I put my name
in the hat and competed and therest is history, so to speak.
(02:53):
And the work is thisopportunity is pretty much a
sort of an ongoing developmentor building on my previous work
experiences.
I've got a long track recordworking in doing municipal work
and local government work.
For a significant part of mycareer, my focus, my work was
really externally focused.
(03:13):
So community, communityengagement, community
development, community programs,community policy and such.
And there came a point wherethere started to be a bit of a
pivot where my work started tofocus on the internal operations
of organization, and this isjust another opportunity to
continue that good work.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So yeah, I am curious
about your choice of careers.
Talk to us, please, and tellour listeners why did you choose
to go on that journey.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Why did you choose to
go on that journey?
Yeah, great, great question.
I don't even know if I reallyunderstand the answer myself,
but I did do my best.
As a young person, I had my ownsort of struggles and
challenges, and there were somereally important people around
me important family members,coaches, friends that really
helped me keep me on thestraight and narrow as best as
(04:05):
they can.
And then, as I came out of thatphase, I always knew I wanted
to pay it forward.
I didn't know exactly what thatwas going to look like, but I
knew I wanted to pay it forwardand hopefully do for others what
I wanted to be able to do forat least one person, what these
people have done for me.
When I was in university, I wentto Wilfrid Laurier University
(04:26):
and in my undergrad I was alsoplaying football, and as a
football player we wereconnected to community programs.
And so I started to getconnected to youth programs, and
so I worked as a youth workerat different places, worked in
group homes and was reallyfocused on working with youth at
risk, so to speak, and moved onfrom being a frontline worker
(04:47):
to then being more like asupervisor of these programs,
working with the municipality.
I worked at the city ofKitchener for a long time and so
really moved more into asupervisory sort of strategic
role, while doing the same workand expanding it from not just
youth but, more so, communityand communities that are
experiencing marginalization.
(05:07):
That's really what brought meto the work, was wanting to pay
it forward and then as I gotintroduced to community, it
really spoke to me right.
It always felt like home, feltlike I had some gifts and some
talents where it seemed asthough the application of those
things in this space was havinga positive impact and was
(05:28):
helping me to feel good, so Ijust stuck with it.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sounds like an
amazing, fascinating story of
upward trajectory and you werepaying it all back.
There's so many people in ourcommunity whose hearts and their
souls are in that place wherethey pay back.
Hence we call them communitybuilders.
(05:52):
So I appreciate what you'vesaid.
Now tell us what a director ofpeople and equity does.
What was your day in that role?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I don't know if there
are two days that are the same
in this role.
I'll attempt to answer thequestion, rita.
The boring part of that answeris I provide strategic oversight
direction.
I'm responsible for the peopleand equity departments, and so
our department is a small butmighty department.
We service the entireorganization, so we work with
(06:26):
all areas of the county, of themunicipality, and so we got a
couple of areas that we focus onall things human resources, all
things health and safety, allthings learning and
organizational development, allthings human rights and respect
in the workplace, and all thingsequity, diversity and inclusion
.
So those are all of the areasthat sort of fall under people
(06:49):
and equity that I have theopportunity to work with, an
excellent team that doesbrilliant work and it's easy,
they make me look good and soyeah, so that's really the focus
of the role, and in addition tothat there are corporate and
strategic directions.
I help to bring some insight tohelp the organization meet
those corporate goals, so tospeak.
And then the last thing, theboring part is we have some
(07:12):
legislative responsibilities allover the place, as human
resources does and health andsafety does, and part of my job
is to make sure that we'remeeting those legislative
responsibilities and not puttingthe organization or the staff
at any undue risk.
Right, so that's the job.
But, as I mentioned, this isthe inaugural role, right, and
so I'm the new person in therole, so it's also an
(07:34):
opportunity.
It was an opportunity,continues to be an opportunity
to craft it and build it,because nobody else was in the
role prior to that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Wow, that is
absolutely amazing.
You talked about some of thechallenges and I'd like to know,
in this organization, whatchallenges did you face in
implementing DEI and how did yougo about addressing those
challenges?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, big question.
So yeah, I'll attempt to answerthat.
And so I think probably one ofthe biggest challenges bless you
, rita one of the biggestchallenges was actually just
getting started.
So the organization, themunicipality, had done some
equity work early on but wasstill pretty early in their
(08:25):
journey, and so trying to getthe organization to think about
equity work systemically and howto begin to operationalize
equity principles, equity ideas,to be able to produce equitable
outcomes, that was a bit of achallenge.
So we're basically startingfrom scratch, so to speak.
(08:48):
But, like I said, theorganization had done some work,
some learning and some capacitybuilding, but in terms of
having a strategic plan, beingable to identify exactly what
those issues were and puttingtogether a plan to figure that
out, we hadn't done that workyet.
So we brought on some folks tosupport us, to really canvas the
organization and ask somecritical questions of the entire
(09:08):
staff, all levels of staff, sothat we were able to be able to
pinpoint and say with certaintywhat were the problems that we
were trying to address, right, Ithink so often with equity work
we lose sight.
That's a really critical step,right.
What are the problems are youtrying to address?
And so that was long work, lotsof engagement, lots of
conversation, but we felt thatwe got there and then we needed
(09:31):
to then create a plan that wouldaddress those problems that had
been identified by staff, andit was an excellent
collaborative process.
Lots of folks across theorganization participated as
being on this advisory team.
We had a third party consultantsupport us and develop a four
year equity strategic plan thatwas ultimately approved by our
(09:53):
council and appropriatelyresourced Right, and so I think
we're pretty lucky on that frontthat we were appropriately
resourced and then away we went.
And so some of the challenges Ithink one is just startup, so
building the inertia to getgoing, and then another
challenge is all folks are atdifferent parts in their journey
in terms of understandingequity Right, and I think we see
(10:16):
in the broader sort of societytoday there are some intentional
sort of misunderstandingsaround equity and what it is,
and some of that stuff then alsofilters into the workplace, and
so it's trying to make surethat there's a general baseline
understanding of what our EDIwork is.
So trying to get people to thatbaseline understanding,
(10:36):
baseline language, to create theenvironment to be able to move
the work forward.
So I don't think we're anydifferent than any other
organization in that front.
We have some early adopters,we've got some keeners, we've
got some folks who are not toosure about this stuff but
they're positive about it, butthey need to learn a little bit
more before they can figure outwhere they fit into this puzzle.
(10:58):
And then we have some folks whoare probably at the other end
of the spectrum and resistant tothe work because, for a host of
reasons, many of which there'sjust a sort of ongoing
misunderstanding of what equitywork is right.
So, yeah, so those are some ofthe challenges we're about.
So our equity strategic plan wasapproved in the fall of 2023.
(11:19):
So we're about a year and ahalf or so into it.
We were able to do a pulsecheck with the organization to
see all of the work that we'vebeen doing for the last year and
a half.
Has it created any change?
And the results from thatsurvey show clearly that the
work we've been doing has hadsome positive impacts.
(11:40):
It shows in some areas we'venot had any progress stagnant
and then we have some areas thatcontinue to lag.
But it's a positive sort ofinitial understanding or
evaluation of the impact of thework that we're doing so.
We're making some headway, butit's heavy work every day.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I like how you framed
that.
You talked about intentionalmisunderstandings.
And that has consistentlyfollowed us, the people
Intentional misunderstanding forwhatever reason, for whatever
rationale.
But you know what?
In your bio you talk about aclient-centered approach, and I
(12:22):
worked in fields in the pastwhere that term was bantered
around a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
So I needed your help
in understanding.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
What does that look
like, what does it feel like,
what does it sound?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
like yeah, yeah, good
, great question.
So for folks on the call, inaddition to my work here at the
county and the differentmunicipalities and local
government that I've worked at,I'm also a licensed practicing
social work therapist slashpsychotherapist, right, and so
this idea of client-centeredapplies in my clinical work, but
(12:57):
it also applies in my otherwork, and so it's just this idea
of one really centering theclient, centering the group,
centering the community andrespecting that they have the
knowledge around what it is thatneeds to happen.
Often experts can come in andsay this is what needs to happen
, and so it's this top-downapproach and awareness from a
(13:20):
client-centered approach isreally honoring the fact that
folks have an intimateunderstanding of what it is the
issues are that they have andwhat is going to be required to
be able to address those issuesand really working with folks
from a very empatheticperspective.
And the belief is that with theright supports, folks can
(13:43):
figure out the answers and thesolutions that work best for
them.
And if the question is, whatdoes a client-centered approach
mean for me?
I don't know if that's thedictionary meaning, but that's
the meaning I make of it andattempt to operationalize that.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
We'll go along with
that definition.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Good, that's my
statement and I'm sticking to it
.
Good.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That's my statement
and I'm sticking to it, so I
want to talk about some of yourtherapeutic and community work,
and so what motivated you toestablish Breakthrough
Counseling and Wellness Services, and what gaps in mental health
services are you trying toshore up, phil?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, really great
question.
So I think I'll answer yourquestion with telling a bit of a
story, and I've told this storybefore, so I'm not breaking any
confidences.
So in my earlier days and as Iwas seeking therapeutic services
and supports for myself, I hada pretty rough, unfortunate,
harmful incident, and that wasreally the driver that sort of
pushed me to becoming aclinician myself.
(14:56):
And so what happened is with myclinician at the time, the
question that they asked me thatI thought was really harmful is
, they said you know what?
And this was a non-Blackclinician and the question that
they asked is they said was yourdad a typical Jamaican?
My parents are Jamaicanimmigrants.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, I see the look
on your face.
I can't make this up, and myresponse in the moment it did
feel like a bit of a throatpunch moment.
It did feel like a bit of athroat punch, but my response in
the moment was if the questionthat you're asking me is my dad,
a hardworking, committed fatherand husband who aims to provide
for his family, then the answeris yes, my dad is a typical
(15:37):
Jamaican and the clinician inthat moment really caught
themselves right, and they triedto, as Jamaicans will say, they
tried to fix up in the moment.
I walked out of that sessionthinking here we are in the
clinical space and it is a placeof immense vulnerability, right
, and it's supposed to be a siteof healing, but in the wrong
(16:01):
hands, intentional or not, itcan be a site of harm.
And so I wondered how manyother people if in a similar
situation, people who look likeus, if they would have the
Warenthal to be able to respondin that particular way, and I
assumed the number would likelybe low, right, and at that point
(16:21):
I said you want to know what?
I'm going to become a clinicianto work with folks to reduce the
likelihood of those folksexperiencing harm when they come
(16:48):
to a space in their mostvulnerable states, and that was
really the driver to bringing meto my clinical work.
And the other part that I willsay is because most of my
professional life has reallybeen focused around the macro,
so to speak, systems pieces.
That it was a skill set that Ithought would blend really
(17:09):
nicely with the clinical piecethat is really focused on the
micro.
So I could bring in this upperlevel sort of systems analysis
to also help people understandwhat it is that they're dealing
with and what it is that they'refacing, and the structural
analysis to also support themental health analysis and think
as a practicing clinician.
(17:29):
I'm unique that way and I findthat it is helpful for my
clients when I can bring in astructural analysis in a way
that they might not have hadthemselves.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I am flabbergasted
that you had insight into where
it all responded to that commentabout your guy in such a
professional and mature manner.
Isn't that interesting?
And you still remember thatstory, so obviously it was
tattooed in your soul, in yourheart, in your mind.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, I will never
forget that moment, never.
I will never forget that moment, never.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Now, based again on
your bio, you've dabbled in
equity for many years.
Please share some of thechanges that you have observed
over the years in this equity.
Diversity, inclusion.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, yeah, I'm
nowhere close to what I would
call an OG in this work.
I still consider myself anewbie, so to speak.
But to answer the questionaround, some of the changes that
I've seen from where I sit isthere was a time, not too long
ago, when we weren't using thelanguage of EDI or DEI or EDIB
(18:42):
or any of the acronyms that aremore in the lexicon today.
There was a time when weweren't using that language, and
so we were really talking aboutcommunity development and
community engagement and thelikes and such.
We were using the language ofbelonging.
We were using the language ofsocial isolation right, but it
(19:02):
was still working with folks whowere experiencing disparate and
disproportionate outcomes right, we're really focusing on
particular groups of people, butwe weren't using that language.
And so with the shift inlanguage, I think also then
changes the focus, right, itchanges how we look at things,
and so you began to see thatthen the language of the antis
(19:24):
came in, so the anti-oppression,the anti-racism, and that
really helped to provide a sortof razor sharp vision around
what it is that we're talkingabout.
Right, it was better language,it was a better tool, I think,
about equity, work, technology,and so it's forever evolving and
becoming more effective andmore efficient.
And then it seemed as thoughthe antis, the language was a
(19:48):
little rough or abrasive forpeople.
It was experienced that way.
And then you started to seethis segue into EDI, right, as
though that language was alittle bit more palatable, right
, and so even EDI itself, theway it gets bantied around today
.
If it's one thing, right as farfrom understanding, and it was
still like fringe work, so tospeak.
(20:27):
Of course, depending on yourgeography or your location, how
much of that work was part ofthe lived reality of that space
would be different.
But then 2020 happened themurder of George Floyd and all
of those high-profile executionsof Black people that were on
video and TV and all that sortof stuff.
And then it took off right, andit almost seemed as though I
(20:50):
think they called it the racialawakening.
And then everybody, andunderstandably and rightfully
and I'm glad there's a lot ofattention being brought to
anti-Blackness.
That was being brought todiscrimination, transphobia,
homophobia, the list goes on youreally saw an increase in the
understanding of the Black LivesMatter movement, and so a lot
(21:11):
of opportunities, a lot ofresources, a lot of attention.
It was sort of a sweet spot, soto speak, if I can use that, in
terms of the attention and thewillingness to be able to
address these concerns that havebeen longstanding for time.
And so now what we're beginningto see is that the pendulum had
(21:31):
swung far on one end and thependulum is now swinging back
right and that sort of overallopenness to addressing equity
and marginalization anddiscrimination.
We're beginning to see asignificant pushback to that,
and so the work now is becomingincreasingly more difficult
(21:55):
because you're bumping upagainst a very active, very
organized, very committedresistance to this social
justice work, right.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I have to agree with
you, Rohan, on that, starting
with the phrase racial awakening.
We see this happen.
It's almost kind of like amanic-depressant kind of a thing
where something horriblehappens to a marginalized
individual and when it happens,all of a sudden there's this
(22:31):
racial awakening and so it goesflying off of the charts.
Now you've got all theseorganizations helping and coming
up with new, fresh ideas inorder to allow DEI to make its
strong foundation and get thingsmoving, but then, as you just
said, all of a sudden thatpendulum spins back the other
(22:53):
way and now you're getting allof this really fierce pushback
and we can see that right now inthe States how they are
actually dismantled.
DEI for what?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
it's worth.
There's an attempt to do it.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yes, for what it's
worth.
There's an attempt to do it,yes, and because of that, it
makes us, as a Black people, andalso those that are
marginalized, really have todecide what steps need to be
taken, moving forward in orderto re-establish parts of ZEI
(23:32):
that may have been damaged.
Even though I am of the beliefof an old oak tree, you may cut
the tree down, but the roots aredeep, so I agree with you on
that, about the fact that Idon't think it's all gone and
they can't make it go away.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
No, Sorry, if I could
even just jump in yeah please
go right ahead.
I think what I would just buildon your answer there I'm
thinking about this piece arounddeep roots, right?
I think we need not be overlyoverwhelmed around what is
happening in the moment, in thisresistance right In this moment
(24:09):
.
Because if we look historically, anytime, whatever social
justice movement pick yoursocial justice movement where
there has been progress, therehas been resistance right.
So we've seen this before,we've experienced this before,
and, as communities who arecommitted to social justice, for
(24:30):
allies who are committed tosocial justice, for all folks
who are committed to inclusionand equity, we've had to
consistently respond toresistance and work through this
.
And so this is just anothersort of moment in time, and so
we don't have to be on our backor on our hind legs like what is
happening.
I think it's a time to gather,refocus and continue to do the
(25:00):
work.
It may look a little bitdifferent, the language may
evolve, the strategies andtechniques that we use may
change, but this work has beenhappening, and it's because
there's an inherent I believeanyways there's an inherent
feeling desire for allcommunities to experience
liberation, and I don't know howanybody could ever put that in
a box.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
In terms of the
pushback and resistance.
I look at the slavery orenslavement experience.
I look at the slavery orenslavement experience and if
they couldn't stop theliberation there, after how many
years of that?
How it hurts, but we are muchmore prepared, much more
educated.
(25:42):
We're much more resolved, muchmore determined.
I think they're wasting theirenergy.
I really believe so, and I'mnot saying that the work isn't
getting harder.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
They're not going to
win this.
Yeah, yeah, and so thank youfor that.
(26:15):
Andjugation, discrimination,and the list goes on and on and
I have nothing.
I have no reason to believethat our community, all other
communities who are experiencingthose things historically, will
respond any differently thanhow they've responded
historically.
That's just what history hasshown us.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And that's our
reality.
We don't go back on it.
I think it was Tony Wurzel whosaid many months ago that if you
have to keep someone at yourknees to feel powerful,
something's wrong, and that isphilosophy.
Someone must be at your kneesfor you to feel powerful in
(26:59):
something radically wrong, andso I want to talk now about
black brilliance.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Tell me what that
means yeah, black brilliance,
thank you for asking that.
So in order to answer thatquestion, I got another story,
if that's okay with you guys,Black brilliance.
So when I was in WaterlooRegion for a long time I worked
for City of Kitchener.
I mentioned I worked for theregion of Waterloo and so I was
doing a lot of work in thecommunity.
(27:25):
Myself and a couple of otherfolks connected with some folks
at the Waterloo Region DistrictSchool Board.
Folks connected with some folksat the Waterloo Region District
School Board, and at the timethere was an interest and a
desire to put on some sort offorum or one-day event for Black
students in the school board,in the public school board over
there.
And instead of a whole bunch ofadults getting in the room and
(27:47):
trying to plan an event foryoung people, we said, look, why
don't we go out to the schools,to the high schools, and talk
to these Black students andfigure out what exactly it is
that they'd want if we were todo a day together?
And in short order we spoke toa number of young people from
different schools and they wereabsolutely brilliant and in the
(28:09):
conversations about what couldthis one day look like,
ultimately they started talkingabout their experience as Black
students in school, right, andthey started talking about very
eloquently and very in a matterof fact, like with razor sharp,
analysis of what was happeningto them in school and the impact
(28:29):
of the anti-Black racism thatwas happening to them in school.
And so we pushed pause for asecond and deliberated what do
we do with this information?
Because we started out wantingto figure out what do you guys
want to do for a special eventand all of a sudden they started
telling us their experiences ofanti-Black racism in school and
I think within the context ofin Ontario and broader, the
(28:51):
country we understand insideeducation, it has been a
significant site of harm andanti-Blackness and
anti-indigeneity historically,so this is not new, right.
And so we then came back to theyoung people and asked them if
they would be interested inbeing educators themselves and
(29:13):
really using their knowledge andtheir lived experiences to
inform the system of what ishappening, the impact and what
the system can and must do tocreate different outcomes for
Black students.
We got a little bit of funding,we then got some cameras and
microphones and that sorts ofstuff, and the young people
(29:36):
really took the lead.
We did some training with themjust so that they knew how to
use the equipment, and they wentoff and created these amazing
digital stories right, and thosedigital stories were then used
for a day of professionaldevelopment inside the Peel
District School Board for theequity training that they were
doing for their educators andadministrators.
(29:57):
So these young people went frombeing students to, in a way,
being educators themselves.
So they learned lots of reallygreat stuff and in those
conversations and thedevelopment of these digital
stories they also answered someof the initial questions that we
asked them about a day ofbringing folks together, and so
we were able to gather thatinformation and work with the
(30:18):
young people to develop a fullday conference.
Now it has absolutely taken offand ballooned and turned into
something that I could neverimagine.
Black Brilliance has been goingfor many years straight now in
Waterloo region and it was wejust we called it Black
Brilliance.
Part of it was because of thebrilliance of the young people
(30:39):
to be able to be so articulateand insightful into the
experiences they were having.
I hope that answers thequestion.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Yes, and it was also
an amazing story.
A little bit about educationand policy development.
So during your tenure at thePeel District School Board, what
were some key policy changes ormilestones you helped to
(31:09):
implement to promote equity andanti-racism?
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Yeah, great question,
I appreciate that.
One, yeah, so just a little bitof.
So a couple of things that I'llmention.
One was and there's some greatpeople at Peel District School
Board that I had a chance towork with absolutely brilliant
folks, and anything that I speakabout here it's not Rohan
Thompson did it, it was really agroup of folks that really
collaborated on it.
But two pieces out to that I'llmention is the development of
(31:39):
our at the time.
I believe what we called it wasour strategy to hire more Black
and Indigenous educators,because what the data showed us
a couple of things.
One was we had a in terms ofour student population at Peel
District School Board.
We had a high, like a very high, number of racialized folks at
(32:00):
Peel District School Board.
Right, the data also showed atthe time that there it was
almost an inverse number ofeducators in the system and what
the literature also points tois Black and in particular,
black and Indigenous studentshave better student outcomes,
educational outcomes, when theyhave the opportunity throughout
(32:24):
their educational career to havea Black or Indigenous educator.
So that kind of that's what thedata says and we have at Peel
District School Board shout outto amazing school board trustee
over there, kathy McDonald KathyMcDonald for the win every day,
all day.
And so Kathy had broughtforward a motion that was
approved and that was thecreation of creating a strategy
(32:45):
to hire more Black andIndigenous educators, and myself
and my team got to collaboratewith other folks inside the
organization to develop thatstrategy and so we were able to
do that and really proud of that, and the board has been working
a way around increasing thecomplement of Black and
Indigenous educators to helpsupport having better student
(33:07):
outcomes for Black andIndigenous students.
So that was one piece.
The other piece, peel to SchoolBoard, was the subject you guys
may or may not be aware of wassubject to a ministry review.
Right, and essentially theministry review came about
because of significant communityconcern and advocacy around the
(33:28):
intensity and the prevalence ofanti-Blackness in the school
board that was being experiencedby staff, students and families
and caregivers.
Right, and from that reviewthere were 27 ministry
directives that were identified.
Right, one of the ministrydirectives was the development
of a comprehensive anti-racismpolicy.
(33:50):
So I was lucky enough that inmy area we were responsible for
facilitating the development ofthat policy.
I didn't write the policy, Iwas responsible for facilitating
the creation of it.
Shout out to we got to workwith a great elder in the
community.
Shout out to Dr Akwatu Kente.
He is actually the architectand the writer of that policy.
(34:14):
But the process to develop thatpolicy is we had a significant,
robust community engagement andso we spoke to many different
faith communities.
We spoke to the diversitywithin the Black community,
because there is no singularBlack community.
We spoke to a number, we spoketo a broad range of other
(34:35):
racialized communities and sosignificant, robust community
engagement.
We got a lot of information, alot of data, a lot of buy-in
that ultimately led to thedevelopment of what I think, and
I think other folks wouldconsider this, to be the most
robust anti-racism policy ineducation, likely in Ontario and
(34:57):
probably the country.
So really, those are probablythe two sort of signature pieces
that when I reflect upon in mytime at Peel District School
Board in terms of the thingsthat would help to facilitate
systemic change, those areprobably the two pieces.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
When we speak of
international, we seek to
inspire and educate, and that isexactly what's happening today
with Mr Van Bromson, who is ourguest, and he's telling us about
his experiences and his story.
Now I want you to tell us threethings that you like about
(35:37):
Rohan Thompson.
It's a trick question.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's a
tough question.
Can I say next question please?
I'm kidding, I'm kidding Rita,I'll stay with this Tough
question.
I'll be honest, I typicallydon't think about this one.
I think that one of the things Ilike about myself is I think
I'm a relatively reasonableperson.
I can be pretty strong in myown opinions, but I think I'm
(36:07):
flexible enough to try to meetfolks where they're at and look
for compromise.
And I'm sure there are peoplein my life who might think
differently.
But I think I'm flexible enoughto try to meet folks where
they're at and look forcompromise.
And I'm sure there are peoplein my life who might think
differently.
But I think I'm a relativelyreasonable person.
I think because of a lot of myexperiences, I think I'm pretty
resilient.
I think my fortitude sort ofscore is high right and in that
(36:28):
if something is put in front ofme, I really don't believe that
I can't get it done.
Whatever the it is probably toa fault.
And lastly, I try not to takemyself too serious, like when
it's time to be serious and it'sgame time, so to speak, then
you know my game face is on andthat's just what it is.
But when it's not that I liketo play and laugh and have lots
(36:49):
of humor and joke, and it'sbecause this work it's a lot of
emotional labor, right, it'spretty intense, and so those
moments of joy and laughter,sort of relaxation, are super
important and so I try to factorthat into just to me and who I
am and all things that I do.
So those are probably thethings that I like about myself
(37:11):
the most.
But I got to be honest, that'sone of the tougher questions
anybody has asked me of recentmemory.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Leave it to Rita to
come up with a bamboozle
question.
That you answered flawlesslyand we do appreciate your
transparency.
We definitely do appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks Rita.
No, okay, I guess my nextquestion, I guess, is more or
(37:39):
less the same, but I want toknow that I remember you saying
something about playing football.
You were a football coach rightFor 13 years or so give or take
.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, like I coached
for a pretty long time there,
and prior to that I grew upplaying football as well.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, Okay, so then,
how do you see sports to be used
as a tool for mentorship andyouth development, particularly
with those that are inunrepresented communities?
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yeah, great question.
I think sport is reallyimportant and it's a great
opportunity for development inyoung folks, and so what I'll
say for myself, what Iexperienced through sport was I
was able to have success, and inhaving success it helped to
build my self-esteem.
And I think that was reallyimportant because, with having
(38:36):
some success at something andbuilding my self-esteem, it
helped me to think as though Icould be successful in many
other things not sport related,and I don't know if I would have
had that if sport wasn't partof my life.
The other thing that sportbrought for me, or I learned
through sport, wasaccountability, and so I kind of
(38:57):
one thing about football.
The team is so big, you have abig coaching staff.
You have eight, 70, 80, 90players.
You have a whole sort ofathletic therapy staff.
There's a whole infrastructurebehind it and everybody has a
role to play.
Everybody's job is equally asimportant, whether you're
getting headlines or you'rebehind the scenes and nobody
knows your name.
(39:17):
And so what that did for me isreally taught me to understand
the value of my role, regardlessof whether there was notoriety
and headlines or not.
I had a role and I wasaccountable, that what I did
impacted everybody else, and thelast thing I would say that
football did for me, and I thinksport in general can do for
(39:38):
other people is teaching themhow to be resilient, right.
I had a coach, lots of reallygreat coaches, one coach in
particular.
He used to say give me your besteffort, right, give me your
best sort of mental focus andwe'll live with the results.
(39:59):
And so what that sort of taughtus and taught me was goals and
everything are really important,and I would never say that
goals aren't important, but it'swhat's more important.
But it's what's more important.
What I learned from sport is isto be committed to, to be
committed to your craft and toalways come forward with the
maximum effort, to come forwardwith your best effort, and the
(40:21):
likelihood is you're going tohave more success than not.
It's not guaranteed, but youwill likely have more success
than not.
And so the goal or winningbecomes irrelevant.
The other person or the otherteam becomes irrelevant, and
really the focus is you.
You know, can you stay dialedin, can you come to work every
(40:42):
day and give your best effort?
Can you learn from your ownmistakes, can you hold yourself
accountable, and all those sortsof sort of growth pieces was
really what I took from sportand I think can have a similar
impact and does have a similarimpact, on just about anybody
who is associated to sports letme divulge a little embarrassing
(41:06):
secret with me and for please.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
I used to go to some
games.
I never understood that I wouldalways take a book and sit
there.
Understand, I did not.
I still do not understand here.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Can I tap, tap onto
that story there a little bit.
When?
So, when I was a young personand I first started playing my
my mother wasn't keen on meplaying.
She thought I was going to gethurt and all that kind of stuff,
right.
And so my mom and mygrandmother came to a lot of my
games and I don't think they, asJamaicans, they understood
soccer, they understood cricket.
Coming to Canada, they fell inlove with baseball, but Canadian
football or American footballreally not their thing.
(41:45):
Anyways, as the years went on,they started to understand
things a little bit more.
To the point, when I got touniversity they would come to
the games and the game would beover and everybody's looking for
their family and friends whocame to the game and everything
like that.
And my mother and mygrandmother would now be coming
out of the stands and instead ofgreeting me with a hug or
(42:06):
saying good job or anything likethat, they're coming out of the
stands with critique on how Iplayed and how the team played
and questioning particulardecisions.
The point I'm trying to make isif you stick with it long
enough, you do get to understand.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
I have to say that
must have been a trying time in
life.
After you've been punched andbeat up and knocked down and
sore, and now here comes mom andgrandma and instead of them
saying, oh you did such a goodjob today, baby, no, they're
going to come back and tell youyou didn't catch that pass.
(42:43):
This game could have been over20 minutes ago if you had just
caught that one ball.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
But they did it with
love.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
That was all good.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
I was going to end
this at my little intro, my
little end thing, by saying wegot to love them.
What else can we do?
When you look at all of thethings that you've done so far
in your line of employment, whatis the most important thing?
(43:15):
That when you look back which Iknow they say never look back,
but in this case, when you lookback, out of all of it, what do
you see as the most importantthing, that crown jewel that you
would hold to be the mostproudest moment in your life,
(43:37):
outside of this and this isoutside of your family.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Yeah, yeah, great
question.
At this point I don't know if Icould look back and say there's
like a signature piece.
That is the thing that I'm mostproud of.
I think there's a number ofthem, but and I've been lucky
I've been so lucky and soblessed that I've had people who
(44:01):
believed in me right.
I had people who not onlybelieved in me but they also
sponsored me right.
They vouched for me and becauseof that, they then gave me,
they provided opportunities orprovided pathways to
opportunities that allowed me todo some pretty good stuff up
until this point.
(44:22):
So there's a degree of luck thatI've had.
I want to acknowledge that.
But, coming back to one of theearlier questions that you asked
, if we're all to come to an endtoday, the thing that I'd
likely look back on and be mostproud of is if, throughout the
journey, anybody that I'veimpacted, that I've come across,
(44:43):
had an experience that said,hey, you want to know what Rohan
really helped to change me forthe better Rohan really impacted
me for the better.
Whatever that better may be,because that's how this whole
thing started right Is justreally wanting to pay it forward
and help set somebody on atrajectory that some really
(45:03):
important folks helped to set meon a trajectory, and so, when
it's all said and done, if therewas one person, or two people
or whatever, who had a commentlike that about me, then mission
accomplished, missionaccomplished.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Amazing.
Bring it forward so important,isn't it?
Now let's suppose, rohan andKatsi, that you had an
opportunity to address agraduating class of social
workers.
What three gems would you wantto leave with them?
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Hey, rita and Elton,
you guys are winning on the
questions today.
I think three things that Iwant to leave with the
graduating class of socialworkers.
One is and this isn't a newsort of idea or notion that sort
of is within the school ofsocial work is really focus on
not doing harm.
I think that's such animportant sort of principle
(46:04):
there and it can happen soeasily because folks are most,
they're in their most vulnerablestate, right.
So I really think we are asclinicians, as helpers, when
people invite us into theirjourney, we really have to take
that with a lot of gratitude andreally focus one on not doing
any harm.
So that's number one.
Number two that I would say isfor people to really understand,
(46:27):
for other social workers tounderstand, that just about
everybody when they wake up inthe morning, you know they're
doing the best that they canwith what it is that they have,
with all of the resources thatthey have, that the information
it is that they have.
Most people, the vast majorityof people, are doing the best
they can with the resources thatthey have and let's really
(46:49):
honor that, really challenge ourbiases or anything along those
lines that may show up in yourpractice as a helper right.
And number three is that peopleare not broken, right.
Most people, lots of people,are going through challenges,
but they are not broken.
(47:10):
And if most people, if they'resupported properly, if they're
given the right amount ofresources, if there's an
adequate or a proper amount ofbelief in that person, they will
likely do really good thingsand have better outcomes for
themselves.
And I think it's reallyimportant.
(47:30):
If we understand that, then youhave a very particular posture
how you approach working withpeople, because you know all
they need is the right level ofsupport and they can get to the
place and they will get to theplace that they want to get to.
They just need to be supportedproperly.
So those are probably the threethings that I would leave with
a graduating class.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
And let them be
graduated.
I may say so myself.
One of the things that I wantto take away from everything
that you said and I think you'veused this phrase more than once
said, and I think you've usedthis phrase more than once and
that is do no harm, regardlessof whatever it is that you're
(48:14):
doing, even if you are hopingthat you just know that this is
going to help an individual oran organization, but to always
remember to not to do any harm.
Always remember not to do anyharm.
I want to thank you so much,rohan, for giving us the time
this afternoon to have aconversation with you.
It has been long in the running, but I will say it has
(48:42):
definitely been worth the wait.
I really want to say that, andwe covered a lot of things.
We covered starting with yourown personal journey and how it
began, and I think that we alsotalked about the therapeutic and
community work that you areinvolved with, along with
(49:04):
education and policy development, and how you look at, how you
compartmentalize a lot of thosepieces in order to make sure
that all of what's required isdone, and I think most people
would be very appreciative ofthat.
So I want to say thank you.
Thank you so much for beingwith us this afternoon.
(49:28):
And, rita, do you have anythingyou want to add to that?
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yes, I say a hearty
esti Buenas gracias.
Thank you to you for blessingus with your presence, but, more
important than that is forpouring into us and to our
listeners.
You certainly will leave ourplatform richer than it was
(49:53):
before you joined us, so thankyou.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Elton Rita, it was a
pleasure.
I'm honored, elton.
Thank you for continuing toreach out.
I know this is probably acouple feels months in the
making, maybe a couple of yearsin the making, but yeah, I had a
pleasure.
This was a lot of fun.
I hope at least one person getsa little something out of this,
and I do appreciate both of youfor your thoughtfulness and
(50:18):
handling me properly in thisconversation and for you both to
ensure that you did no harm tome.
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
That's the most
important thing.
Thank you for listening toSpeak Up International.
If you wish to contact Mr RohanThompson, please be prepared to
submit your name, your emailaddress and the reason why you
wish to contact Mr Thompson atlinkedincom.
(50:49):
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