Practices and Program Implementation
During the Families First Edmonton (FFE) Project Service Delivery Phase, community partners, government partners and researchers gained extensive knowledge about:
- Improvements in service delivery to better meet the needs of families with low income
- Families' experience with systems
- How to engage small, emerging multicultural and Aboriginal communities
Put this research to work now to help your organization reflect on and improve business practices or help your organization reach out to families who may not know about your services.
FFE Partner Stories
Families First Edmonton partners share their stories about the learnings and insights they gained while implementing the service delivery phase of the FFE research. Learnings gained at that stage have already resulted in changes to practices that are helping to improve service delivery and the lives of low income families.
First Conversations Count
KARA and the YMCA tell their stories about what they've learned about the importance of that first client conversation. Changes to how that first conversation is handled, and what is asked, have yielded efficiencies to the community organizations as well as benefits for families.
Maximizing the Opportunity at Intake to Connect Families with Services
The first conversation with a client is a critical opportunity to develop a relationship in order to hear the family's needs and connect them to the right resources. Read how KARA has changed that first conversation to provide better service.
Telling the Family Income Story Once
Low income families must repeatedly prove their low income status to qualify for programs and services. This creates a barrier for many families in accessing available services. Read how the YMCA has changed that practice and saves time and resources while improving service to families.
Connecting Low Income Families to Services: Immigrant and Refugee Communities
Edmonton's immigrant and refugee community were eager to learn more about the YMCA's services for wellbeing, recreation and leisure. Being involved in Families First Edmonton resulted in new relationships and new learnings for all parties.
Service Delivery Toolkit
The comprehensive Service Delivery Tool Kit documents FFE's experience in coordinating service delivery across systems to connect families to recreation, health and social services. It provides agency practices to implement a service approach that is principle based and builds family capacity. The Service Delivery Tool Kit can help organizations determine staffing, supervision and practices required to coordinate across agencies to connect families to recreation, health and social services.
Find out more by reading the accompanying highlight sheet for the Service Delivery Tool Kit
You may find this useful to:
- Examine leading practices in program delivery
- Determine staffing, supervision and practices required to coordinate across agencies to connect families to recreation, health and social services
- Implement a culturally sensitive, principle based, capacity building approach
- Learn how to better connect and engage with hard to reach families
- Support a business case for funding to coordinate or include recreation services for families
Enhancing Community Capacity to Engage and Involve Immigrant and Refugee Families: A Model for Inclusive Collaboration
How do you build sustainable, community-based partnerships and collaborations between organizations and immigrant and refugee communities? How can cultural and linguistic barriers be bridged so that organizations can more effectively work with these communities? Enhancing Community Capacity to Engage and Involve Immigrant and Refugee Families provides FFE service delivery knowledge into partnering, providing services and engaging with these communities.
Find out more about immigrant and refugee communities by reading the accompanying highlight sheet
You may find this research useful if your organization is contemplating, or in the process of:
- Creating or delivering programs and services to small emerging immigrant/refugee communities
- Partnering or collaborating with immigrant/refugee communities
- Working across sectors to provide services to immigrant/refugee communities
- Looking for a cultural responsiveness assessment tool
- Want to build greater understanding and relationships between cultural communities and organizations
- Helping build the capacity of immigrant and refugee communities