January 2021 Conversations & Notes

On Wednesday, January 20th we held our first gathering of the year!

Of the topics available we had five great conversations - you can find the full notes here.

The questions explored in each breakout room and highlights shared include:

There has been a lot of success with programming that is about making things together (e.g. jam or crafts).
Recommendation to change up your offerings regularly to keep people engaged and bring in new community members.
Listen to what the community wants and needs - that is truly the key.
Offer more joint programming with other agencies! That helps reduce the costs (e.g. of materials) as well as the work to promote and distribute.

It is a challenge that things are closed, so many community developers are using online opportunities and creating new programming like a “connections cafe”, online cooking classes, etc.
Using resources that are available is important, e.g. AHS’s resources of the Psychological Disaster Network.
Engage with partners in communities and work with them!
Think outside of the box, for instance a community rock garden idea that one person shared… They had participants paint rocks in their own homes, and then drop off at a common area at different times to build a colourful rock garden.
Build a strong volunteer base to make things possible!

It is difficult to engage in community without starting with stabilization - making sure that basic needs are being met.
Strengthen what and who we have first, before expanding outward.
Focus on our assets, not our deficits.

Note: the participants in this conversation wanted to share that this conversation focused on immigrant families.

Start with understanding the conflict.
Natural Supports are key. Goal should be to connect them to natural supports.
Building trust is super important, including but not limited to with the facilitator.
Use resources to support and ensure access.
Build their capacity to navigate the system & empowering them to take that on when they are ready.
Create safe spaces to talk about conflicts.

Listen compassionately and build skills.
Find new ways of inviting and bringing people in.
Assume they can participate. We don’t do that often enough. Don’t underestimate people.
Trust building essential!
Learn more about allyship, anti-racism, strengths-based training… and get better at this ourselves.
Need to enter praxis (theory applied in practice).
Motivate EVERYBODY.
Do it from the heart, and apply your learning.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and participated in these important conversations! We can’t wait until next month to do this again!