Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Feedback from "Strategies for Achieving Results" Seminar
Two members of our LWG (Sonya and Raluca) attended a "Strategies for Achieving Results" seminar on July 15th, 2008. Each of us summarized the main ideas and impressions we took away from this seminar. Please see below:
Strategies for Achieving Results
Workshop Summary- Sonya Renfro
The idea of ‘systems thinking’ is an idea that our group should keep in mind as we move forward in our adventure.
Systems Thinking is a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively and to act more in tune with the larger process of the natural and economic world. -Peter Senge
For me, this was a big take away from the workshop. We need to consider what we do and how it will affect the other systems in place in Mansfield and our surrounding area. Some systems/organizations may be addressing needs that we see, we need to ask ourselves how we can use and improve these working systems.
Though our focus is the child between birth and 8, we need to keep the big picture in mind. As we develop strategies for meeting the needs of the children and families in our community, we need to keep the big picture in mind and know that what we do can affect our entire community both positively and negatively.
We are not yet ready to develop the strategies that we will implement. When we get to this point, we will want to consider priority needs for our community and use the results we want to see to drive the implementation of those strategies that we develop.
Strategies for Achieving Results: Summary of Seminar held on 7/15/2008, by Raluca Mocanu
What are the strategies to achieve results? The answers to this question can be summarized in 5 points, as follows:
Systems thinking (as opposed to categorical thinking): this means looking at an issue from various perspectives. Systems thinking focuses on inter-relationships, and is dynamic as opposed to static. For example, when discussing the welfare of young children and their families, systems thinking would consider how family context, schools, public health, housing and neighborhoods, mental health, economics, welfare, etc. interact and interplay to produce the realities we see.
Identifying promising practices: begin by looking at programs and practices that have demonstrated effectiveness in producing results.
Building a comprehensive community strategy: this refers to an array of mutually supported and integrated programs or activities, tailored to the target population (young children and their families in our case), and focused on positive results.
Involving partners in strategy development: partners are anyone who holds a stake in improving results. In our case they may be: parents, neighbors (whether they have children or not), local businesses, elected officials, local and state agencies, etc.
Implementing strategies: at this stage, partners will help support implementation strategies; assume new roles and responsibilities as needed; provide community and political support. The emphasis here is on partners’ openness and flexibility.
I found the content of the seminar interesting and very applicable to the work our LWG is doing. Another strong point of the seminar, I thought, was the fact that it brought together many different communities from CT. All of these communities are essentially involved in the same type of work, yet they are at various stages of the process. It was very interesting to hear different people speak about challenges and successes they encountered along the way, and how they moved on from there.
Strategies for Achieving Results
Workshop Summary- Sonya Renfro
The idea of ‘systems thinking’ is an idea that our group should keep in mind as we move forward in our adventure.
Systems Thinking is a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively and to act more in tune with the larger process of the natural and economic world. -Peter Senge
For me, this was a big take away from the workshop. We need to consider what we do and how it will affect the other systems in place in Mansfield and our surrounding area. Some systems/organizations may be addressing needs that we see, we need to ask ourselves how we can use and improve these working systems.
Though our focus is the child between birth and 8, we need to keep the big picture in mind. As we develop strategies for meeting the needs of the children and families in our community, we need to keep the big picture in mind and know that what we do can affect our entire community both positively and negatively.
We are not yet ready to develop the strategies that we will implement. When we get to this point, we will want to consider priority needs for our community and use the results we want to see to drive the implementation of those strategies that we develop.
Strategies for Achieving Results: Summary of Seminar held on 7/15/2008, by Raluca Mocanu
What are the strategies to achieve results? The answers to this question can be summarized in 5 points, as follows:
Systems thinking (as opposed to categorical thinking): this means looking at an issue from various perspectives. Systems thinking focuses on inter-relationships, and is dynamic as opposed to static. For example, when discussing the welfare of young children and their families, systems thinking would consider how family context, schools, public health, housing and neighborhoods, mental health, economics, welfare, etc. interact and interplay to produce the realities we see.
Identifying promising practices: begin by looking at programs and practices that have demonstrated effectiveness in producing results.
Building a comprehensive community strategy: this refers to an array of mutually supported and integrated programs or activities, tailored to the target population (young children and their families in our case), and focused on positive results.
Involving partners in strategy development: partners are anyone who holds a stake in improving results. In our case they may be: parents, neighbors (whether they have children or not), local businesses, elected officials, local and state agencies, etc.
Implementing strategies: at this stage, partners will help support implementation strategies; assume new roles and responsibilities as needed; provide community and political support. The emphasis here is on partners’ openness and flexibility.
I found the content of the seminar interesting and very applicable to the work our LWG is doing. Another strong point of the seminar, I thought, was the fact that it brought together many different communities from CT. All of these communities are essentially involved in the same type of work, yet they are at various stages of the process. It was very interesting to hear different people speak about challenges and successes they encountered along the way, and how they moved on from there.
LWG Meeting Minutes from 06/19/08
You can access the minutes from our June 19 meeting here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)