Diane Skinner

NEW CARLISLE: Through a new project, Family Ties, a community organization in New Carlisle is equipping its personnel with the knowledge, tools and capacity necessary to support the local English-speaking minority community as it faces future challenges.

The Adapting to Change project, which is being coordinated and delivered by Ann Kelly, is sponsored by the Canadian Red Cross Society through their Community Services Recovery Fund.

The Canadian Red Cross makes funding available to assist community service organizations, such as Family Ties, to strengthen their ways of working and building their resiliency so that they can better support the community which is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Adapting to Change project will provide team training and goal setting which will create awareness of the relationship between individual wellness, a strong organization, and a healthy community.

“This project couldn’t have come at a better time. After being apart throughout the pandemic and then the building renovations, the staff were able to benefit from both individual well-being and team building components to enhance communication and skill sets to better serve the community,” says Heather MacWhirter, Executive Director of Family Ties.

Ann Kelly meets individually with employees of Family Ties and assists them to create and fulfil their goals. She will also meet weekly with the staff as a group to lead them in wellness practices and team building. Four retreats based on a needs assessment conducted by Ms. Kelly are a component of the project, with two already taking place. The first was built around the theme of personal and work well-being and was led by Bianca Briciu from the School of Leadership, Ecology and Equity at St. Paul University. The second workshop for the Administrative Council was also on well-being and led by Bianca Briciu.

In the future, the Tamarack Institute will offer a workshop on navigating challenging behaviours. Ann Kelly states, “In the end, I will produce a Resilience Strategy which will enable Family Ties to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and adapt to future situations to support the English-speaking minority community.”
Ms. Kelly states that her overall hopes for this project are: “that Family Ties adopts ongoing wellness practices for staff and the organization as a whole; that community partnerships are strengthened and that the staff and leadership of Family Ties have the tools, knowledge and strategies they need to face the future, whatever it brings.”

Ann Kelly has a very strong interest in well-being: personal, organizational, community and systemic. A person’s health is not just an individual responsibility. It is a collective one, and this project supports and instructs collaboratively and collectively. “This project believes that there is an interconnection between individual well-being, a strong organization, and a healthy community. I hold the same belief. My values line up with the values of this project and of Family Ties,” summarizes Ms. Kelly.