[Dialogue] Carolyn Acker is awarded the Order of Canada

[Charles Hahn]

Hey Wayne!
What a moving and wonderful story.  Congratulations to Carolyn Acker.
Charles Hahn

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Wayne Nelson <wnelson at ica-associates.ca>wrote:

>
> Sometime around 1990, Pat Tuecke and Gary Forbes did a workshop on
> strategic planning at an Organizational Development conference in Toronto.
>  On the Monday following that event, I got a call from Carolyn Acker. She
> had been in that workshop and she wanted to talk with us.  Carolyn was the
> Executive Director of the Regent Park Community Health Centre.  Regent Park
> is a large neighborhood of subsidized housing. No commerce or anything of
> that nature - apartment buildings and social services. Like a London
> housing estate or a cleaner, low rise Pruitt-Eigo or Cabrini Green. Most
> residents on social assistance, gangs, teen pregnancy etc.
>
> Duncan Holmes and I went to see her and Jo facilitated their strategic
> planning. It included everyone in the organization and was, over the next
> year, extremely successful. The whole organization changed and was
> enlivened. The place was brighter and more in tune with the community. We
> worked with Carolyn and the health centre for many years. Some events were
> focused on the planning - implementation cycle. Some were more specific. We
> facilitated the development of an early childhood development program led
> by parents. We did facilitator training with staff and board and in some of
> their program areas.
>
> In one of the workshops, a brand new idea surfaced. Carolyn has always
> said that health clinics do not make a community healthy. They had been
> engaged in a great deal of malaise prevention and  health promotion
> activities and had the clinic (a brand spankin' new one that was part of
> the planning) running really well, yet they felt that the situation in the
> community was still deteriorating.  Carolyn looked at the "Determinants of
> Health", a framework that identifies the factors that contribute to
> healthiness in a population. They run all the way from air quality to a
> sense of empowerment to participate in shaping one's life. She looked and
> said there are two that are extremely obvious and basic that are in pretty
> bad shape around here - income level and education. Regent Park was at the
> bottom of both with all the down stream problems associated with poverty.
>
> By the end of the workshop, the group drafted the initial image for the
> "Pathways to Education" program.    It is a wrap-around program that helps
> kids get through school and get the best education possible. It engages
> students, parents and teachers in a focus on each student in the program.
>  The program involves academic, social and financial support as well as 1
> to 1 mentoring and coaching.
>
> It has been massively successful and is being replicated across Canada and
> in the US.
>
> Average youth participation rates of over 85%
> High school graduation rates among participants in the program have more
> than doubled
> High school dropout rates have declined by over 70%
> The rate of students going on to college or university has increased by
> 300%
> The program generates a $24 social return for every $1 invested
>
>
>
> We are deeply pleased to see Carolyn inducted into the Order of Canada.
> What an amazing contribution she has made. Perhaps Carolyn's key quality is
> her compassion and her powerful persistence in pursuing a vision. It was
> great to be there when the spark of 'I can see some allies' was lit for
> her. It has been amazing to work with the dizzzying variety of people in
> that community. It is great to be a part of something that is actually
> re-structuring a community and breaking the poverty cycle. There are a
> whole lot of people who can see their way into a more human life.
>
>
>
> \\/
>
> Visit - http://www.pathwaystoeducation.ca
>
>
>
> - - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson
> wnelson at ica-associates.ca
> O - 416-691-2316
> M - 647-229-6910
>
>
>
>
>
>
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