Sept.2009.Pdf

onthe PREMIER EDITION FALL 2009 HORIZON The Horizons Community Development Associates Newsletter In this issue... Welcome... Welcome to the first edition of our newsletter! INTRODUCTION 1 mentary skills and interests, and seek contracts At our annual fall retreat in September, we couldn’t do without each other. This is a we talked about how we can keep all the visionary and passionate group with excellent ideas and connections, and we usually enjoy CURRENT CONTRACTS 2 people we work with engaged on an delicious food when we get together. ongoing basis between contracts, and how WHAT’S HAPPENING? 3 we can strengthen our existing excellent Our Circle members are: Barbara Kaizer relationships within the Horizons team – (Grand Pré), Darcy Santor (Ottawa), Joanne and the newsletter idea was born! At this Linzey (Canning), and John Colton (Wolfville). CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 4 point we are envisioning it as quarterly, and COMMUNITY Research Assistants (RAs) we intend to circulate it electronically to everyone we work with regularly. Our pool of RAs have a broad range of CALENDAR OF EVENTS 5 skills and interests, and work on a casual basis on all kinds of contracts. The RAs are We want to use the newsletter to keep all of you an incredibly talented, wise, and kind group of ON A PERSONAL NOTE… 5 informed about the contracts we are working on, people, and we have fun working together. and about relevant events and resources, and we also want to use it as a tool for everyone to Our RAs are Barbara Lipp (Aylesford), IN THE KNOW 6 get to know each other. We welcome your Berta Klooster (Black Rock), Brenda comments and input, and we look forward to McKinnon (Antigonish), Camille Dumond including your ideas in upcoming editions. (Tatamagouche), Christina McRae (Wolfville), Erica de Sousa (Wolfvile), Heather Holm Now, we realize that we know who everyone on (Mahone Bay), Jennifer Thurlow (Halifax), the Horizons team is, but you may not all know Julie Bull (Charlottetown), Marie McCully each other. So allow us to introduce you. Collier (Truro), Marie-Claire McPhee P.O. Box 2404, Wolfville, NS B4P 2S3 (Peterborough), Michelle Fike (Wolfville), www.horizonscda.ca Circle of Associates Shauna Glidden (Port Williams), Susanna We welcome your comments and Steinitz (Smith’s Cove), and Trudy Watts suggestions. The Circle of Associates is a group of con- (Pictou). E-mail us at: [email protected] sultants who work together on a regular basis. We draw on each others’ comple- (Cont’d on page 2) PREMIER EDITION onthe 2 HORIZON FALL 2009 Welcome... (Cont’d from page 1) Our Trip Down Under... Administrative Assistants (AAs) talented, flexible, and imaginative, and has great ideas and suggestions to give our work the We completely recognize and appreciate professional, yet casual and fun look we like. that things would fall apart without solid administrative support. Our talented AAs What a team! help us with various tasks to keep Horizons running smoothly, and also help us with We are very honoured – and by times humbled administrative tasks in our contracts. Our AAs – that all of you want to work with Horizons, and are Cynthia Keizer (Halifax), Helen we are very proud of our collective work. We Woodward (Wolfville), Holly Aulenback extend our sincere thanks to each of you. We (Brooklyn), Josephine McDonald (Lower look forward to our continued work and learning In June, Cari and Jean had the op- Sackville), Shannon MacLean (Kentville), – and playing – together! portunity to attend and present at the Sharon McInnis (New Minas), and Wilma International Association of Community Cromwell (Coldbrook). Development’s conference, Building Com- munity Centred-Economies,in Brisbane Designer Australia. Our session, Fostering Magical Moments in Community Development Greg Tutty, who is based in Liverpool, does Practice, was well received and included all of our design work at Horizons. He is very the telling of the Stone Soup story and singing along to Perry Como’s Magic Moments! The conference reinforced our commitment to supporting local economies and local communities in our Current Contracts professional and personal lives. While in Australia, we spent a couple of days in Sydney, participated in a field trip to the Atlantic Health Policy Framework Evaluation community of Maleny, Cari participated (Cari, Jean, Berta, Camille, Shauna, Rose, Sunshine, Ashley, Margaret Ann, Willie) in an IACD board meeting, and we took a few days to rest and relax on North The NS Department of Health (DOH), First Nations, and other Aboriginal communities Stradebroke Island. It was an amazing in NS are developing an Aboriginal Health Policy Framework (AHPF); the end goal adventure and we were also happy to is comprehensive health care for all Aboriginal peoples in the province. Horizons return home to our families! is conducting the evaluation of the AHPF and of the overarching Adaptation Plan between the DOH and the deferral Aboriginal Health Transition Fund. We have paired some of our senior RAs with Aboriginal RAs as learning partners. We are designing and conducting the evaluation together, and will be reflecting on what we are learning as we go through the process together. Challenging Behaviours Evaluation (Cari, Jean, RAs TBD) The Department of Health Continuing Care Branch offers a comprehensive program to build capacity of people and systems working with older adults with challenging behaviours based on dementia and/or mental illness. They’ve contracted us to work collaboratively with stakeholders across the province to develop an evaluation framework for the program. We will be conducting consultation sessions in different areas of the province in December and again in February, and will be asking several RAs to facilitate small working group discussions during the sessions. Upatree Puppetry giant puppet - IACD conference opening. The Horizons Community Development Associates Newsletter PREMIER EDITION onthe 3 HORIZON FALL 2009 Current Contracts (Cont’d from page 2) Model for a Provincial Violent Offender Strategy for Youth in Nova Scotia (Cari, Susanna, Barbara) We’ve been working with the IWK and a provincial inter-departmental steering committee to develop a provincial strategy for dealing with youth who commit serious violent offenses. We reviewed best practice literature, conducted key informant What’s happening? interviews and a web survey with stakeholders, and prepared the initial outline of the strategy. We are working with the steering committee to complete the Strategy before Horizons is seven years old! Christmas. In late September we celebrated our seventh birthday. During our annual Social Determinants of Health & Injury in Atlantic Canada fall retreat we reflected on our ac- (Jean, Susanna) complishments, and set new goals and objectives. We set our five year business The Atlantic Collaborative on Injury Prevention (ACIP) contracted Horizons to develop plan, and as always, reviewed and updated some research-based data collection recommendations for government and non- our policy manual. And we had some government injury prevention practitioners, advocates and policy makers in Atlantic good food and wine! Canada. We are examining relevant literature, and reviewing best practice policies and programming to identify the social determinants that have the greatest impact on injury. We decided to revamp our website, and are in the process of reviewing the existing website carefully. If any of you have Acadia First Nation - Wildcat Ecotourism Feasibility Study suggestions about what you would like to (Jean, John, Donna Hatt (Bridgewater)) see on the website, how you would like to see things set up, or what you like about We’ve been working with the community of Wildcat’s Eco-Tourism Steering Committee the site, please be in touch. to develop an Ecotourism Feasibility Study and Development Plan. The purpose of the work is to determine what kind of tourism products and/or services can work for the community and people of Wildcat. The work has included looking at best practices in Community Development Aboriginal Ecotourism, developing the ‘story of Wildcat’, carrying out market research, Student Internship including target markets and potential partnerships and making recommendations for development. We are currently working on the Development and Interpretation Plan. We are fortunate to be host organization for an NSCC community development student this year. Dana Pettipas (Harvre Bouche) is joining us for 90 hours this Cobequid Pass Rest Area Survey semester, and 150 hours next semester. (Jean, Cari, Cynthia, Helen) Dana’s work will focus mainly on helping We just finished conducting a survey on behalf of the NS Dept. of Transportation and us build regional networks among community development practitioners, and Infrastructure Renewal, Policy and Planning Division. The purpose of the survey was to on connecting the regional group with the determine which services are used at the Cobequid Pass Toll Rest Area, and how often International Association for Community they are used. We collected the data, analyzed it, and drafted a final report, which is Development. currently being reviewed. Circle of Associates Acadia First Nation Strategic Economic Development Strategy The Circle of Associates has been (Jean, Cari) meeting regularly this fall. We are explor- ing the idea of offering some proactive We have worked with Acadia First Nation to create a Strategic Economic Development services and resources that will build Strategy (SEDS). The SEDS focuses on community and

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