To understand their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to serving the region Envision Counselling and Support Centre has launched a needs assessment.
The program has begun with focus groups with some of the service providers in Estevan, Weyburn, Oxbow and Carlyle. Envision executive director Christa Daku explained what they were trying to get from these meetings.
“They have come out and we have had meetings in all of those locations in regards to future partnerships, term partnerships, where there may be gaps in services, where we are finding challenges meeting the needs of our clients in the southeast,” Daku said.
Now Envision wants to hear back directly from their clients and all residents of the southeast region. To get voices out the organization has developed an online survey. The hope is that Envision will be able to get as many people to participate as possible to gather rich data.
Daku noticed that steps are also made to reach those people who don’t use computers or smartphones on a daily basis.
“We will be also going to rural areas in the Southeast to provide input at in-person focus groups,” Daku said.
Now Envision has a needs assessment co-ordinator in place to orchestrate the process and make sure that all community members have a chance to provide input into the research and consequently into the future of services. The project is planned to be wrapped up at the end of February.
The needs assessment allows the community-based organization to work alongside with the community to find ways forward as well as to improve the services they provide. Eventually, the research will help the Envision to better articulate their work when it comes to funding.
“The government is moving towards outcome-based funding and we want to be able to obviously meet the needs of the people that we serve in all areas of our programs as well as our funding ministries,” Daku underlined.
To take a survey you can go online to the Envision website or social media page. Surveys will be available Dec. 10 through the end of February.
