The Partnering Together for Change team at Bloomington Cover Long Term Care home in Whitchurch-Stouffville, Ontario has finished the second Discovery phase of the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) process.
Since January, the team been working hard in the Dream phase of the AI process.
In the Dream phase, the Partnering Together for Change team work to imagine an ideal future for Bloomington Cove that is based on the strengths and successes noted in the Discovery phase.
How do we do this? One exercise we've used it to simply finish the sentence "In 2023, Bloomington Cove is a place where..." The group worked hard not to limit their imaginations based on policy, financial, staffing or bureaucratic constraints--only to imagine what an ideal care experience would be in 10 years from now. The responses were inspiring and were built on what is already working well at Bloomington Cove.
At the March meeting, the group began working on the creation of Aspiration Statements. These aspiration statements are the core of this third phase of the process. They represent a focussed guidepost, or compass. Aspiration statements are goals for the future, written in the present. They detail the sorts of postive enhancements to care that already exist. They take into account the needs, perspective and input of staff from all levels, residents, and family partners.
Partnering Together for Change is still 'fine tuning' their aspiration statements, but once their work is done, we'll share them all!