Case Study: Serving Diverse Families

“Across the province, our member organizations have requested information on how to serve diverse families, specifically for our sector. We want to build on what’s already proven successful.”

Situation: A provincial umbrella organization needed to support its diverse member organizations in responding to the changing demographics of the communities they serve. They knew that there were already some best practices in the field, but they needed someone to compile that information and help translate that knowledge into a format that would resonate with their membership.

What We Did: We worked with the umbrella organization to create a needs assessment and survey of best practices to send to their member agencies. The needs assessment and survey determined the issues and common questions that their practitioners were facing and captured some good practices that already existed in the field. We analyzed the data from the survey and created a report of the findings with recommendations for moving forward. Next, we delivered research on best practices outside of the organization (nationally and globally) and developed learning materials and a training session throughout the province to member organizations.

Benefits: Surveying within the organization first (i.e. before looking for best practices elsewhere) gave the diverse membership a voice in the process and helped the client clarify the common issues throughout the province. This also helped our consulting team understand the organizational culture, create materials that reflected a practitioners’ context, and validate the good work that was already happening by integrating those internal best practices into the overall strategy. The member agencies were able to co-create the solutions to the problems they faced, which resulted in engagement and interest in applying the new practices and recommended strategies.