Staff Strategic Planning
Connected, Caring, Communities
Families
Resilient and Hopeful Youth
Systems with Resilience embedded
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Neighborhood-based connecting *** other category
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Laughter, safety, creativity together *** other category
WFCN operations
ALL GOALS
Goal: empower community and neighborhood organizing
- Chances for community leadership, youth voice
- With more of their voice
- Finding volunteers from community
- Establish a wfcn presence in EVERY neighborhood in Bellingham/Whatcom County – as a resource for connecting people and communities.
Goal: be a known hub of resources
- Create Resource List—in many forms
- Be better accessible and “used” by the community—not just “in” community—be of use to community.
- Connecting community members to resources
- “WFCN is part of our neighborhood”/”WFCN helps us connect/remove barriers and fear that keep us in our homes/isolated.”
Goal: Expanding coalition work
- Coalitions (WPC, MBCC)
- Sustain the WPC coalition and support the development of a coalition in every community in Whatcom county (Ferndale/Lummi, Blaine, Lyden, Mt. Baker, Bellingham).
- Expand to four days a week plus other areas
- Strengthening families
- Eliza project (after school tutoring)
- Promoting/ supporting plus risk taking for positive development
- Community school support
- Expand to have in all county MS plus HS more volunteers to support more community support
Goal: intentional outreach and public education
- Increase percentage of population in WC who know why Resilience, Toxic stress and Hope matter—and understand the concepts personally.
- Social norming dissemination
- Safe, trusted adult campaign—media driven/youth developed
- Community wellness campaign
- Resilience building campaign—community outreach
- Increase marketing and public outreach communication. If we are truly connectors for empowerment, people need to know how to find us and what we do.
Goals: Socially branch out. Get to know people. I don’t have co-workers or clients, I have neighbors.
- Community organizing liaisons
- There are lots of willing folks- just have to get the right people on bus (Jim Collins)
- Community members taking initiative in starting plus sustaining projects that matter to them
- Community know to come to WFCN for information and community building project
- Convening (providing space)
- Neighborhood how to party 101: tips, tools, reasons, resources
- How to organize block watch (partner with Bellingham police) to execute
- As neighborhoods shift, help existing and new residents bond
- Our voice
- Convene conversations that matter
- Increase activities around compassion and connection
- Host connection events with neighbors convening block parties, trainings, meals, potluck
- DO MORE community building projects, like BW International Market
Goal: Hopeful trainings for the communities
- Resilience training/ Aces – smaller more often
- WDRC
- Resilience summit
- Increase FUN—connection based activities that don’t “add to” calendars and schedules. More spontaneity.
Goal: Host Opp. For families to connect
- Bilingual Zumba
- Flex nights at Birchwood (more)
- Creating space for connection
- Host family fun nights
- Fun game nights, discussions, dinner
Goal: Remain in community links program
- Greater audiences
- Community links involvement
- Community links
Goal: Resource list for connecting families to their area of need
- Ample early childcare is available
- Increase “concrete” resources available through WFCN
- Parents are a great resource to each other. Money for childcare, food for more classes/outreach
- Hub for family resources
Goal: Educate and listen to new and old parents on self-regulation, parenting, ACES, mentor/coaching?
- Ask for their voice and listen
- Resilience building training
- Family focused presencing and purposing skill building opportunities
- ACES training for families
- Tailoring curriculum to meet their needs as a family
- Parent coaching and strengthen families
- dads group- boys to men group
- prenatal parents are versed in self- regulation skills and knowledge of NEAR sciences
- more direct services
- work with new parents (to learn how to raise children)
- parenting class for every child in high school as a prerequisite for graduation (Miguel)
Goal: Support parents and families through parent/family programs/initiatives.
- Re-energize Parents Matter or develop programming that serves families through the WPC.
Goal: Find ways to support existing, prevention intervention in the schools
- Support PI clubs based on individual club
- Support PIs based on individual PI needs
- Create a collective spirit between Pls and clubs, and coalition coordinators for collective impact
- Increase support for prevention intervention in schools
- Prevention clubs
- More support for school. PI’s mental health for children youth, etc.
Goal: Expanding our reach
- Engage more with schools
- Expand to more classes and schools
- Mad hope
- Wider audience
- Build sustainability into MAD HOPE Youth Suicide Prevention Program, expand program to serve the entire county with goal of zero youth suicides
- More volunteers wider audience
Goal: expand youth leadership
- Strongly relying on students to present
- Give them tons of opportunities
- Work outside
- Keep meeting fun
- Get to know people
- Office is everywhere
- Identity development
- Resilience building focus
- Get them into leadership
- Youth/teens support more teens
- Expand the “experience leadership” project idea—older youth/younger youth
- Youth leadership opportunities—fun, developmental, accessible
- Leadership in prevention
- Large youth leadership summit or conference
- Youth presenters
- Youth adv. Council board get them into leadership!
- Party 101 classes—fun-filled/drug free
- All graduating teens have been provided NEAR sciences information and self regulation Skills/S-E training
Goal: find ways to support existing prevention intervention/ healthy youth development outside schools
- Engage more with larger youth serving organizations, whose missions align with ours.
- Community schools support for: WDRC, Brigid Collins, Community Links
- Activity nights monthly?
Neighborhood-based connecting *** other category
Laughter, safety, creativity together *** other category
Goal: Provide Resilience Training in Community
- More during the year
- Hire trainers/ Have a trainer position on staff
- Training with mindset shift focus
- Employers see and understand the value of trauma-informed workplaces
- WWU/WWC embed in new professionals- teacher education, H.S. Psych, S.W.
- Increase trauma informed practices in schools/ youth serving systems
- Aces in schools (trauma informed practice trainings)
- Expand training and implementation of Near sciences/ trauma informed practices across publiv agencies plus private
- Training governments in resilience/toxic stress, juvenile justice
- Law enforcement and emergency response services trained and valuing NEAR sciences
- Healthcare professionals trained in NEAR sciences/ health systems practicing via a trauma informed lens
- Disaster responder’s/CERT volunteers trained in NEAR
- Childcare providers trained in NEAR sciences hire trainers/ have a training position on staff
- More systems government and city/county law enforcements, healthcare; business
- Bellingham is a resilient city all staff are trained
Goal: Build a dynamic organization with a broad plus diverse membership to work together on initiatives/ projects in our community to promote positive, healthy youth development
- Embed connecting as a system culture practice
- Build a dynamic organization with members who work together on (a broader and diverse membership) initiative/projects in our community to promote positive, healthy youth development, collaborate with their community coalitions to create a collective impact to dramatically decrease youth drug and alcohol use, abuse and youth suicide prevention, and increase opportunities for positive healthy youth development and risk taking.
- Build cultural competency, diverse representation and student voice into WPC, increase school representation in WPC, create a coalition that is responsive to changes in community as a lending force in creating healthy communities for youth and their families.
- grow our relationships with schools/staff/leaders
- Intentional coalition outreach to variety of sectors plus fields
- Indirect service through parents/teachers
Goal: Understand/Research Current Needs
- Identify the challenges/barriers that children/youth/families face as they work to achieve goals
- Meet with key community leaders to conduct a community society of needs assessment to guide our work
- Conduct a community priority of needs assessment to guide our work
- To more intentionally bring “conflicting” groups together for unity
- 1 on 1 meeting with leaders: ask what they know, ask what is possible
- Engage with city of Bellingham leaders more—communicate our ideas
- Support the quality of social/emotional shifts (find out what school needs to succeed and host space to provide for the need)
- Focus on positive approaches to problems solving—through community capacity building: the community does the work. Engage and Advise the leaders.
- Respect big brother/big sister program
- WPC collaborations to affect systems/policies for example no vaping ordinance
Goal: Easy, accessible, efficient and smooth processes
- Advocate for systematic change toward equitable resilience based processes in community institutions
- Economic growth advocacy (medical and food)
- Advocate for courts to be able to prescribe rehab as part of a sentence
- Prosocial opportunities that are free cost alternatives to drug/alcohol use
- Advocate for universal healthcare in Whatcom county
- Staff with Multiple languages
Goal: WFCN Systems
- Space rental Roosevelt
- Volunteer staff handle scheduling phone
- A gathering place for community
- Casual place for connecting
- Professional development opportunities (CPPs, community health workers, individual growth opportunity)
Goal: WFCN creates culture, policy and procedures that reflects the diversity of the community
- Lots of different people engaged hire people with language skills, from the neighborhood
- WFCN connects over strengths and the ways people enjoy celebrating
- Our workforce is diverse, with ability to speak a different language
- Equity remains central to our decision making and planning—who we focus on for resilience building/ community building as priority: Lummi Nation/Nooksack Nation/ isolated by geography, economics, social stigma, language.
Goal: WFCN known as a place that support the wellbeing of its people and partners
- Something like “high-fiving” or “fist-bumps”
- I feel young and healthy
- Youth gathering at facility
- Parents at facility
- Children playing at facility
- Access to children and families for creative reminders and inspiration
- Ability to retreat from noise
- Babies to hold
- Lots of different people representing all of Whatcom county
- Healthy staff, happy staff, adaptable staff, learning and developing always
- Unity across team members and programs—All for One and One for All, kind of feeling
- Increase teamwork, organization and common connections across WFCN team/programs and in how we grow
- A thriving board of directors, who are engaged, knowlegable and motivated
- Well respected internship and volunteer program with high quality coordination and supervision. Volunteers in leadership positions
Goal: Establish WFCN facility that focuses on wellbeing and connection
- Flexible workspace
- Kind of a space like Roosevelt with garden and living room space
- Different organizations coming in and out space for youth
- Peaceful garden outside with place to get one with nature- focus breaks
- clean, spacious, uncluttered, vibrant
- plants, office spaces that give people room to think/ be creative, come together
- windows central area in middle of office to come together and talk collaborations plus reenergize
- coming and going in community, people visiting
- open floor plan
- windows! big ones!
- Everyone together in one building, large table for meetings and sharing ideas
- Soft warm colors like yellows, sage green, relaxing colors on walls, windows to peaceful outside
- Small area for breaks, lunch
- Roosevelt center is home base
- A central program/ services office where ALL staff, paid and unpaid can work ir gather—perhaps co-located with other youth serving organizations
Goal: WFCN has a sustainable foundation and attracts philanthropy
- 6 months rainy day funds in reserve
- Look for grants that fund (compassion, connect, activity) these things rather than substance/ suicide prevention based- grants
- Add more fiscal sponsorships, but truly help develop them into viable, sustainable nonprofits
- A strategic funding plan that is diversified and not all on the shoulders of one or two people to procure
- Find permanent, sustainable home for MAD HOPE youth suicide program
