News A Year in Reflection A Year in Reflection December 16, 2022 Blueprint Project Update – December 2022 A Year in Reflection Looking back on the last year of the Project, we have experienced several achievements while encountering challenges and learned lessons along the way. The Blueprint Project began during the beginning of the Pandemic, and we have continued to encounter periods of unprecedented times and shocks to our agencies, clients, and communities. Whether it be capacity issues, staff turnover, an increasing demand on services, or political blows that impact our rights or services, our project partners have been weathering the storm, while continuing to work towards transforming the ways we refer and serve clients. With bold and innovative conversations, Community Working Group members have discussed and changed their information sharing practices, ensuring clients remain centred throughout the process. The Communities of Practice have been creating impactful and safe spaces to reflect on the current state of services, while dreaming of possible pathways to collaboration, intersectionality, and inclusion. I am grateful to all our project partners, our community members, consultants and fellow ACWS (Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters) colleagues for their ongoing commitment, support, and time over the past year. Collaboration is not easy, and our progress is not always linear, but we have continued to dream and learn together, and I look forward to continuing this work in 2023. Please see below some of the lessons learned and milestones from the past year as Project Manager. – Nicole Orji Lessons Learned: Authenticity shines: It is about bringing our authentic and whole selves to a collaboration. Humility goes hand in hand with this. We are all people before our honorifics or titles, so we strive to be authentic and lead with curiosity and generosity, with laughter along the way. Time is currency: When we are in a non-profit organization, a lot of what we have to offer is our time. Time is what it takes to build trust, build authentic relationships and to have meaningful collaboration. Time is valuable, especially when agencies are engaged in front-line service delivery, so we want to ensure we are using and sharing that time wisely. Collaboration is a journey: With any journey, we know there are going to be hiccups, roadblocks, and barriers along the way. How we respond to those makes up the journey of collaboration. While we do have an outcome in mind for the Project, there are so many learnings and lessons along the way; if we are just focused on the intended outcome, we may lose sight of those unexpected outcomes. The fine line of communication: It is important not to over-communicate or under-communicate. This is a balance and sometimes, sometimes we find that balance and other times, we need to re-evaluate our channels. Again, this is part of the journey. Milestones: We hosted 4 quarterly provincial working group meetings uniting the 2 regional working groups and 3 communities of practice. We travelled to Grande Prairie and Red Deer to connect with project members and host in-person meetings. We hosted 3 change management learning sessions for staff and agency leaders facilitated by Watershed Inc. We co-created the Guide for Gaps – self assessment tool for agencies to assess their level of inclusion for 2SLGBTQ+ clients, while receiving resources for further development. Please note, we look forward to launching the online assessment tool in the new year. We provided free assessment training sessions to all members of the Blueprint Project. We contributed to revisions of assessment tools to ensure greater intersectionality for 2SLGBTQ+ clients, with plans for future revisions with Indigenous and Newcomer, Immigrant and Refugee Communities of Practice. We hosted a focus group for Project Members to share their insights on economic abuse experienced by their clients or members in support of an ACWS research project We developed the Indigenous and Newcomer, Immigrant and Refugee Communities of Practice to support and unite service providers across the province We finalized 2 interagency information sharing agreements to enhance and transform the information sharing practices for partners within the Community Working Groups We developed and tested a new SharePoint App to improve and promote information sharing between community agencies based in the same regions. Back to the Blueprint Project page.
