This site is our share space, home base, kitchen table, or digital office. This is where you can connect and sign up with the project, find out what’s going on, review and contribute to the plan, sign up for events, get involved, and learn about the progress we are making. There are resources for building a Manitoba collaborative network or community of practice - collaboration for systems change, plus materials and opportunities to build your capacity, skills and knowledge, as well as a way to share your ideas and contribute.
A strong social safety net is how we care for those vulnerable in our communities who cannot work or care for themselves. We see the social safety net as a system of systems that, as a whole, are needed to protect people in the case of family and gender-based violence. That is why our project also includes prevention and supports for gender-based violence, along with moving towards a livable basic income, improving the system for building and maintaining much needed low rent public and social housing, and at the same time preventing the loss of market based low rent housing in the private market from ongoing rent increases. Part of the project addresses the gaps in early childhood education and child care, as we understand that the first years of life are important to ensure children and families are well supported during foundational years of child development that often require additional care and resources. Finally, we join the many initiatives working to end the colonial era of apprehending children from families for residential schools and Child and Family Services. We aim to ensure parents and other caregivers struggling to raise their children in healthy families, can access the resources they require without stigma, punishment and avoidable barriers to healthy supports. We know that poverty and other factors like gender based violence are long lasting determinants of health that can have profound long term impacts on the life and health of us all.
We know that these services are investments in Manitoba that bear fruit and saves money in the long run. We also know that a strong social safety net is how we share and take care of each other as part of a civil society that respects human rights. For every child that is healthy and ready for school, we save in costly services in health and criminal justice, mental health and welfare later in life. It is far easier and more cost effective for governments to ensure families with kids are healthy and well educated than to treat unhealthy adults and address the consequence of people not completing their education. And healthy kids need healthy families. The Reweaving Support project sees the social safety net as a good way to redistribute wealth. Meaning businesses will benefit from well-trained employees in the future when all kids get the support they need growing up. Many business leaders now see that investing into early childhood education and other family supports is the way to ensure they have work ready employees in the future – building a healthy economy and environment where all of us can thrive. From a gender-based analysis when we talk about support for kids we mean support for mothers, especially single moms, as many kids in poverty are from single parent families headed by women, often women who face stigma in accessing reproductive health care, and gender based violence.
This shared vision is based on research evidence of what supports families need and what works.
Our vision is based on the best current thinking from:
