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Family Connection Reminded that Collaboration is at the Heart of Our Work at 18th Annual Summit
BY PEARLETTE CID The 2008 Family Connection Summit, The Heart of Collaboration—Working Together, was a huge success, featuring a variety of inspiring speakers, insightful panelists, an interactive general session, and four motivating workshops.The 18th annual two-day winter event gathered statewide collaboratives, partners, community leaders, and public officials in Atlanta last month. Taifa Butler, director of Public Affairs and Policy at Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP), kicked off the opening session by showing a video produced by the Partnership and Voices for Georgia's Children, focusing on health-care challenges for people living in Georgia. The video portrays real families telling why health care is an indespensable factor in raising children to be successful contributors to our society, and shows a greater need now, more than ever, for partners to work together, using proven practices as their road map, to make improvements for children, families, and the state of Georgia. Gaye Smith, executive director of GaFCP, highlighted Family Connection collaboratives' successes and introduced, Practices, the fourth "P" of Family Connection's mission, following Passion, Purpose, and Power. "Now more than ever, with limited resources in our state, we follow the proven practices of Family Connection," said Smith. "We must stay true to our principles of local decision-making, results accountability, and collaboration. At the heart of our work is collaboration, which is also our business mode, where we hold each other accountable for results and all of us own the success." A
Variety of Learning Opportunities The opening session featured a conversation with Arianne Weldon, Georgia Family Connection Region 2 community facilitator, and Kimberly Redding, MD, senior public health director of Healthy Behaviors, who provided insight into Georgia's current health-care systems and how changes in Georgia DHR impact communities in providing prevention and mental health treatment services. The four workshops, condensed to one session but expanded to 90 minutes, were based on participant requests from the Family Connection Bienniel Conference in October. The partners and Family Connection collaboratives who presented the workshops shared their latest initiatives and resources:
In addition to the motivating workshops, attendees swapped best practices to take back to their communities during networking breaks. The closing session, new this year, served as a bridge to the policymaker networking program on the second day of the Summit. Panelists Scott Dean, mayor of Harlem; Willie Burns, mayor of Washington; Walker Norman, Lincoln County commission chair; Deborah Mack, Hall County commission chair and GaFCP board member; and Jim Whitehead, former state senator, gave the audience a master class in how to engage public officials. The panelists provided insight into understanding Family Connection's positive impact on children and families, and gaining the support of elected officials for a successful community. Participants learned the importance of building a strong network and how to connect to elected officials and get them—and keep them—involved. Summit
Networking and Legislator Breakfast
The Summit Networking and Legislative Breakfast at the Georgia Freight Depot in downtown Atlanta the following day had a huge turn-out and attracted legislators and state partners. Albert Wright, GaFCP Board chair, addressed the attendees by recapping on Family Connection's ground-breaking network success and how it relates to the Summit theme, "The Heart of Collaboration—Planning Together." "The Family Connection collaborative model has become a proven practice other states and countries are interested in replicating," said Wright. "Over the past six years in my role as GaFCP Board chair, I've observed how we've grown from 15 communities in 1991 to the largest statewide collaborative serving 150."
Timothy Mescon (left), dean of the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, followed Wright's reflection on the work Family Connection has accomplished to what the network must do to ensure the well-being of children and families in the future. Mescon's inspirational keynote focused on change, long-range strategy, and challenges for 21st century leaders. "Change forces us to rethink our goals in order to keep in step with our mission," said Mescon. "We need the right people, in the right positions, doing the right things. Georgia Family Connection is all about performances to plan. When I look at your result areas, what is so impressive is that you perform around your plan." After the program, representatives from 112 counties assembled at the Capitol to acknowledge legislative leaders for their ongoing support of the Family Connection statewide network with a commemorative Heart of Collaboration valentine.
Learn more about how to combat meth in Georgia. Download "Steps to Building a Drug-Free Community" by Zoe Myers of Cook County.
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