Today we had the Refugee Resettlement Quarterly Public Meeting for Strategic Planning. Members of organizations that work with refugees attended this meeting to develop a 2-year statewide strategic plan to address some key issues regarding refugee resettlement. The first meeting took place in June and focused on different issues. The meeting today focused on three main areas: integrated health, K-12 education, and employment. The summer intern and the other new staff and I attended for Iskashitaa and we were each assigned a different "track." I participated in the employment track.
Once in our tracks, we had to decide as a group which goals we thought were most important to address. For example:
- Develop/expand job search assistance options six months after arrival in the US
- Identify options for affordable and accessible childcare
- Expand on-the-job training opportunities
We had nine of these potential goals, and each member of the group received three stickers to vote for whichever they felt were the most important. We ended up focusing on three goals:
- Develop/expand Vocational English Training
- Expand on-the-job training opportunities
- Develop strategies for refugees to earn a living wage
We then split into groups to address the goals specifically. We were supposed to determine objectives to achieve the goal, identify a date by which the objective should be accomplished, decide what the performance measures should be (how to measure success), and suggest possible responsible parties and participants. What a task!
Somehow I ended up being the scribe for my group, which involved writing down all of these things to be turned in at the end of the session. These will then be reviewed the overall team, revised, sent out to everyone, and then an implementation team will begin working on them. All of the goals here were community input through past reports, conferences, and listening sessions with refugees.
It was a very informational time for me. It is easy to talk about problems, but it is not always easy to talk about solutions. When we talk about solutions, we have to think about what is feasible and realistic. We have to think about the resources that are available and also make sure we are not duplicating existing services. We have to realize that this is a process, and the problem is not going to be solved in 2 years. But we can make a start. We can make progress.
The idea of it being easy to talk about problems stood out to me especially. Whenever my group was off-topic, it was because we were talking about the needs. So many needs exist, and many people have firsthand stories to tell about the needs. Sometimes it even becomes tempting to say, "Well, if there was a solution, wouldn't we have already found it?" It seems that we often enjoy complaining, but we offer no suggestions on how to fix the problem. But this was not the reason we came together. We came together to seek solutions, and that was something we would do together. It will be interesting to see the results of this collaboration when everything is compiled, revised, and sent out to us to review.
Another interesting note is that the facilitator of the employment group was a former US-2! He said he participated in the program around 1975. That was a great connection to make!
After this meeting, we went back to the office and did some work there. We have a food preservation workshop on Saturday, so I am trying to coordinate volunteers for this at the last minute. Then I went to our Refugee 101 in the evening. This happens once a month also functions as our volunteer training. It was great to hear this more in depth and build on my knowledge about refugees and some of the countries they are coming from. It was also encouraging to talk with those attending who are interested in volunteering!
After an interesting but long day, it is good to have some time to rest.
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