Toronto’s Harry Jerome Award honours social change agent

TORONTO:

A Jamaican-Canadian seasoned public servant will for the second time receive a prestigious Harry Jerome Award – this time, the professional award – presented by the Black Business and Professional Association (BBPA). The first award she copped was for leadership in 1994 at 19 years old.

Denise Andrea Campbell, executive director of the City of Toronto’s Social Development Division, is among 13 individuals who will be honoured, one posthumously, at the 42nd anniversary awards on April 27.

Humbled, excited and invigorated, she says the award comes at a time when she will mark her 20th anniversary working with the city. “That comes with some point of reflection, so I think this award is timely in that it’s helping reinforce that I still have work to do and I’m on the right path — and that’s exciting,” says the Port Antonio-born native who immigrated to Canada when she was six years old to live in Oshawa, Ontario.

Given the trajectory of her career, Campbell initially thought that she would have been engaged in international development work, having pursued issues of race and gender policies in numerous United Nations fora. Currently employed in a municipal government job, she now believes that this is what she was born to do. “I knew that I would be doing social change work. I hoped that I would be able to push boundaries and have impact in terms of equity and making meaningful change in people’s lives.”

The changemaker says she is proud of many things in her work but, ultimately, it is about building and sustaining an incredible team of innovators.

Listed among those things is working with her team and partners to develop the Toronto Community Crisis Service, an initiative for people experiencing mental health crises. This is an alternative to a police-led response and has served over 14,000 people so far. It is part of Toronto’s Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan, SafeTO.

In October 2023, the Toronto City Council designated it as Toronto’s fourth emergency service, which includes the police, paramedics, fire service, and now crisis response.

“This is generational change work. This is boundary pushing, it’s innovative, it’s supporting and saving lives, and I couldn’t be prouder. It’s inspiring, it’s about how we can do things differently and do things that change and affect people’s lives in a good way.”

She is also proud of the work to create the Toronto Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism, because it “built and lifted community work and efforts and hopes and turned that into tangible action by the city in a way that has positively impacted opportunities for black Torontonians”.

They are nearing the fifth year of the original plan and have been empowered by the Toronto City Council to create a new 10-year plan – something Campbell insists will have generational impact.

She said the City of Toronto has much work to do, both in terms of reflecting and embracing the talents of black people in Toronto inside the organisation, and supporting quality of life and opportunity in black communities.

“But, over the last five years, multiple parts of the city system, many divisions really did work to try to understand anti-black racism, to recognise white supremacist thinking and patterns, to partner with black communities and change how they’re doing service delivery to better support black communities,” she said.

Her father returns to Portland at winter and her grandmother, who is 102 years old and doing well, wants to see Campbell’s twins, Zander and Zion, who will be six soon. So a family trip to Jamaica is being planned for the year ahead.

Campbell has received numerous awards, including the Young Woman of Distinction Award in 1993 when she was in high school, and, in 2021, being named one of Toronto Life’s most influential Torontonians, and among Who’s Who in Black Canada.