Rachel Robinson, executive director of Belong Ottawa, retired on Oct. 1 with thanks, praise and well-wishes from leaders, colleagues, staff and participants in the Anglican Community Ministries.
Bishop Shane Parker thanked her for 14 years of service with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, initially as senior manager with Cornerstone Housing for Women, followed by 10 years with the day programs (Centre 454, The Well, St Luke’s Table), which were amalgamated into Belong Ottawa in 2022. “We wish her every blessing for this new chapter of her life,” he wrote.
The Rev. Canon Dr. PJ Hobbs, director general of the Anglican Community Ministries, praised her as a “a transformative leader in our Community Ministries, leading a process that saw the merger of our three Ottawa day programs into one ministry. While such a feat speaks of Rachel’s organizational abilities, what I will always value most about Rachel is her vision and passion for supporting the most vulnerable in our midst. Her participant/client centred focus is rooted in compassion, thoughtfulness, and research—an inspiration and good reminder to us all.”
Belong Ottawa board chair Lorraine Tell said that a key area of Robinson’s impact has been “her presence and participation in the local social services network and advocacy agencies where she tirelessly offers her experience and works to be the voice for those who are in need and need support for their voices to be heard.”
Tell added that the staff and participants in the programs “feel Rachel’s impact every day; her focus on participants and her championing of the staff at Belong Ottawa are what make our programs so effective and what makes Belong Ottawa an organization that attracts the best staff in sector.”
Robinson grew up in Birmingham in the West Midlands in England and studied literature and drama at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth before earning a Masters of Science degree in psychology. In an interview with Crosstalk, she said didn’t know exactly what she wanted for her career, “but I always knew I wanted to try and make an impact … a difference.”
Her father had been a civil servant and her grandfather a police officer and following on that path, she knew she wanted to work in the public sector.
She began working with the British National Health Services as a management trainee at a time when they were closing psychiatric hospitals with the idea that people should live and be cared for in their communities. “At the time everyone believed community care was the answer,” she said, noting that the same policies were followed here in Canada. “There were bad things about those asylums, very bad things, but one of the functions that they did fulfill was that they housed people. Now, probably many of the people that live in shelters, downtown, would have lived in the psychiatric hospital previously…. There’s a shortage of good, supportive housing so now we’ve got a crisis downtown of 200 people every night sleeping outside.”
Robinson moved to Ottawa with her family because her husband worked with Nortel. She started her work in Canada as a frontline worker with Ottawa family shelters and the Elizabeth Fry Society before being hired by Cornerstone Housing for Women to help open its Booth Street residence in 2011.
Four years later, she took on a role as interim executive director at The Well, which became permanent. In 2018, she became executive director of St. Luke’s Table also.
In March 2020, the executive director of Centre 454 left, and Canon Hobbs asked her to fill in while they hired a new director. But then the pandemic hit and suddenly she was in charge of all three ministries while they figured out how to continue to provide service in the midst of lockdowns.
“Rachel’s work to stabilize the three-sites day programs during the pandemic isolation period was instrumental to our participants who were suddenly without the basic services that were keeping them alive and connected during that difficult time,” Tell told Crosstalk.
They got a van and began delivering food to the people who used to come to all three locations, which also helped to mitigate loneliness and isolation.
“It was that feeling of all hands on deck. The team really pulled together. Everyone did what was needed in the moment,” Robinson recalls.
The pandemic was the biggest challenge she and the staff faced, but she says that now sees it as a highlight of their work together as well. “It was really difficult and a struggle and tiring…, but also there was a satisfaction of knowing that we were keeping the services going. We stayed open when other programs closed. So, for me, there’s a sense of pride and reward… You can learn and become stronger and grow from adversity.”
She said another highlight was renovating the St. Luke’s Table location, but the satisfaction of seeing that project completed was dashed soon after when a fire devastated St. Luke’s Anglican Church and St. Luke’s Table facilities in the basement. The satisfaction of seeing that restoration, which is still ongoing, will be for her successor, she says.
Robinson mentions her relationships with Belong Ottawa participants as another highlight.
“I’m still very on the ground and connected to participants…Having relationships with such a wide range of people … is really meaningful.”
In her retirement, she is looking forward to spending more time in the U.K. with her family, but she says she will take some time to just decompress. “I’m really just going to wait and see how I feel before I decide what I might do with my time next,” she says.
Congratulations and best wishes, Rachel!
Christ Church, Bells Corners — Deanery of West Ottawa