LEARNING: TO ACHIEVE OUR VISION NOW AND INTO THE FUTURE, WHAT MUST WE LEARN?
Rather than only looking back, the BSC enables the peer organisation to consider its ability to learn and improve now and into the future. This perspective asks: ‘to achieve our vision now and into the future, what must we learn?’. More specifically, what does the peer support program and its team need to learn and improve for the unknown? What do you think that your own peer organisation needs to be great at to ensure your longevity and success?
Organisations operating in the competitive NDIS marketplace don’t always know what is ahead. Being good ‘scouts’ and being ‘prepared for anything’ is what we are considering within this forward-looking perspective. Where we look to build our internal resources for successful member and funder outcomes in the future, in this perspective we are instead considering what investment we may need to make in the present to ensure this success continues. How can your peer program ensure it stays relevant to both its members and its funders? How can you ensure you stay on course over the longer term?
This is an important perspective, as it reduces our focus on short term outcomes, or meeting that next report deadline, to instead considering investments as a way of being prepared for our future. Perhaps we can think of this as being our ‘superannuation’ fund – we are investing today in the hope that we will gain rewards from this in the future. Alternatively, think of this as being a good Scout – and always being prepared.
What are some of the things we may consider within this Learning perspective? What about whether organisational, hard earned peer support knowledge is shared and retained? Do you want a national profile for your peer programs to enable you to more easily build members via referrals and be acknowledged as the peer experts in your specific diagnostic group? Is your peer program run collaboratively, which is a great way to ensure efficiency as well as garner new ideas and inputs? How many people within the peer program area have grant writing skills, and how often are grant submissions prepared?
Considering these sorts of questions may lead to the establishment of an internal mentoring program in order to ensure hard earned peer support knowledge is appropriately managed. Perhaps you can more easily justify investments in team member conference attendance and them providing presentations on your peer program? Maybe training or internal mentoring for team members in report and grant writing will be embraced? Each of these initiatives would likely not be considered under the more short-term objectives focused on within the build, member and funder perspectives.
We ask here: ‘to achieve what success means to us, what should we be investing in to ensure we continue to learn as an organization and be prepared for future environmental change’. This perspective allows us to consider our operating environment more intently. How will the shifts and adjustments that we see over time impact upon your unique peer program design and delivery? Will the new ILC approach be beneficial for your peer program? Is retaining a strong user-led focus likely to be an asset when competing against large service providers – or, more likely, how do we ensure that it is? How can we utilise our user-led history and strong focus on lived experience to prepare for the changing disability sector? Without a strong basis for collecting the right evidence with which to show our worth and benefits, there is of course a risk that user-led organisations may become challenged or even extinct. These are just some of the high level and fundamental questions that are to be considered with this Learning perspective:
In the fast changing NDIS disability marketplace, with changing member expectations, team investments are needed as staff and volunteers may be asked to take on dramatically new responsibilities, and may require skills, capabilities and technologies that were not even available previously. With an adequately skilled and motivated team who are supplied with accurate and timely information, your peer organisation will be able to continue to improve and create value.
It is clear that funding such high aspirations could be expensive. Organisational learning investments may include training, mentoring programs, conference attendances and knowledge management systems. Yet the most important investment in this domain is likely to be relatively inexpensive – it is in the thinking and approach of the peer program team. Considering longer term issues is likely to involve a change of mindset within a team that is used to focussing on short term deadlines and endless scheduled group sessions. But taking the time to think about these longer-term issues is important, particularly when operating in such a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment as the Australian disability sector. Of course, thinking about investments to future proof your peer programs is also likely to improve short term performance. The NDIA ILC team love to see collaborations and plans to build peer group sustainability. Your members will appreciate feeling the security that comes from knowing their peer groups think long-term and won’t stop just when they come to rely on them. The learning perspective is about the preparing for the future, but it is also about ensuring our user-led movement has increased security today.
The following table encompasses examples of objectives within the learning perspective, suggested indicators and targets, with some possible initiatives. Your team will intuitively know the concerns they have about future operations. What are they most worried about navigating? How can we best support them by addressing concerns, before they are active challenges?
| LEARNING: TO ACHIEVE OUR VISION NOW & INTO THE FUTURE, WHAT DO WE NEED TO LEARN? | |||
| Objectives | Measures | Targets | Initiatives |
| National and international conference attendances and presentations are sought, secured and funded by our key team members. |
Funding provided for conference attendance. Number of research presentations, attendances and articles published. |
Sufficient funding provided for conferences. Numbers of research items growing annually. |
Budgetary management for conferences is undertaken. |
| We have a trained, motivated and empowered team including volunteers that are flexible and trained in multiple roles. |
Number of regular and new volunteers. Satisfaction, flexibility and motivation measures of team assessed via individual surveys. |
Growth in all indicators, measured on an annual basis. |
Training budget allowance for key team members. Volunteer survey development. |
| Our organisation develops leading edge information topics. |
Number of new topics. Number of new topic deliveries annually. Member feedback. |
Member feedback re use of information provided in groups. | Nil required. |
| We explore new opportunities and develop new projects. |
Number of submissions. Number of successful submissions. |
Ongoing reporting of submissions and outcomes in CEO Report. | Training of new team members in grant submissions. |
| We expand peer network (groups) locations via a process of new group establishment. |
Successful establishment of new group protocols. New group assessments undertaken upon member request/suggestion. |
New groups. Development of new group establishment protocols. |
Nil required. |