Australia learns to do stuff right. By visiting the Sault

When an organization wins an award, it can expect a little fame and glory.

Maybe even some professional adulation.

What Ken Coulter didn't expect when Sault Ste. Marie's Community Quality Improvement team won a Canada Awards for Excellence in Community Building in 2007, was an e-mail from Australia.

Bronwyn Batten, a senior policy advisor for the government of New South Wales, contacted Coulter about a year ago, after discovering the Sault's Community Quality Improvement team as a result of the award it won.

She's spent the past week with Coulter and the local team, looking for solid ways to improve the lives of Aborigines in New South Wales.

SooToday.com spoke to Batten at City Hall today.

One of the big take-home lessons she picked up while here was durability.

"I really want to impress upon the government of New South Wales that we have to be in this for the long term," she said. "We can't start it and just stop after two or three years."

Batten said her hope was to learn more about how the Sault's team forms partnerships to involve the community and to share data.

The goal of Community Quality Improvement is to establish a set of indicators, between 20 and 70 of them, that can be measured and used to see if life is improving for community members.

It's solid, tangible evidence of the success or failure of initiatives, she said.

It's also evidence that can be used to secure more funding for things that work.

And it can reveal things that administrators and governments didn't know.

But it takes time.

"To really establish a trend, you need at least seven points on a graph," Batten said. "If you don't stick with it, then all that you've done to start it is wasted."

The reward is a healthy, vibrant community whose members are happy and that's what the New South Wales government is seeking for its Aboriginal population.

But it can't be imposed on the community, said Batten.

Solutions to problems have to come from the community or community members will have no ownership of them, no investment in them and no interest in promoting them.

That's what attracted Batten to the Sault Community Quality Improvement team: - the community partnerships and the people involved.

She said she learned a lot about how a successful group comes together, works together and shares data for the good of the community.

Coulter also said he learned from Batten while she was here, and during their correspondence leading up to this week's meeting.

"I learned that we can't just invite people to come and listen to what we have to say," he said. "We have to listen, too."

So Saultites can expect to see more community meetings hosted by the Community Quality Improvement team in the near future.

Coulter said he hopes they will be a good forum for discussion among community members on the things that are important to them, maybe even the source of more award-winning ideas.

A media release from Community Quality Improvement Sault Ste. Marie follows.

************************ CQI attracts interest of Australian government for community building efforts

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON – (April 17, 2009) - Community Quality Improvement is being used as a model for research conducted by the Government of New South Wales Australia around community building and indicators.

Bronwyn Batten, senior policy officer with the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change, has spent the past week studying CQI and how it uses indicators to measure and improve quality of life in Sault Ste. Marie

“This has been an outstanding opportunity for us to learn from an organization that is recognized as a leader in the field of community indicators work” commented Batten. “The level of grassroots engagement and commitment from agencies, businesses and citizens with CQI’s work is incredible”.

Ken Coulter, executive director of CQI, was proud to host the Australian government representative.

“We’ve been recognized for our work regionally and nationally. Having Bronwyn travel so far to study us is proof that we’re developing an international presence as well,” stated Coulter.

Community Quality Improvement was recognized in 2007 by the National Quality Institute with Canada’s first Community Building Award for their efforts in the use of civic indicators to improve quality of life.

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