Dear CIAFV members:
The Leadership Team is feeling energized and engaged and hope that you will join us on our strategic journey. The CIAFV Leadership Team has been in a series of strategic meetings to discuss its direction for 2016, and has determined that, 20 years after its original inception, in order to continue to serve the family violence community well, we need to build a co-ordinated and collaborative Metro Edmonton family violence strategy.
Our refreshed CIAFV vision is: no family experiencing family violence in Metro Edmonton will be without a safety net. And our goal is to build a network of synergistic prevention and intervention initiatives through a strategy that will:
- Identify gaps, and contradictions in service delivery that harm victims of family violence.
- Identify and address system barriers (legislation, policy and practice) that impede thedevelopment and implementation of a seamless system.
- Establish an evaluation approach to measure the success of the safety net.
- Communicate the safety net’s aspirations to you, the CIAFV members, to the broad spectrum offamily violence stakeholders and to the broader community.
- Work in the context of other planning and service delivery initiatives to ensure alignment andavoid duplication.
- Determine CIAFV’s ongoing role as stewards of the strategy.
Our plan is to work inclusively and approach members to work with us to build this strategy in time for presentation to the membership at the Annual Member Meeting in May 2016.
We’ve also spent time as a Leadership Team asking ourselves the question: “What value are we giving our membership?” It’s very important to us that you feel that you are getting value for your dues and that our work with, and for, you is meaningful.
In addition to being invited to be a part of our strategic process, you can be assured that we will be in touch to ask you what kinds information and insight events you want to see in the coming years. Our strategic focus on communications will mean that we are connecting with you on a more regular basis.
We’re also hoping to re-engage lapsed members – and anything you can do to help us grow the network of organizations who support the spirit of CAIFV and want to join our family will be much appreciated.
As we close out 2015, I want to thank our outgoing co-ordinator Mark Nicoll for his work with us and for his devotion to family violence prevention and intervention. We know that Mark will remain a strong advocate for this issue and we thank him for caring about the community. Our consultant Nathan Foerger will remain in his role and you will continue to hear from him.
Best wishes for a happy and safe 2016, Yours sincerely
Sue Languedoc
CIAFV Leadership Team Chair