At the last Pulse Meeting on 20 November participants reflected on the success and challenges of the Alliance to date to help inform the governance and structure going forward.
Prior to the Pulse Meeting the Facilitating Group had been reviewing the work of the Alliance since its inception examining what progress has been achieved, including what has worked well and not so well.
Now it was time for supporters and interested parties to also reflect and guide us on the future of the Alliance as our work continues into 2020.
Members of the facilitating group acted as scribes noting the feedback of participants.
This was recorded on a note-taking canvas and then reported to the main group.
Debra Zanella the CEO at Ruah Community Services presented feedback from her group. She outlined the following themes made by the group.
“The work of the Alliance ends when homelessness no longer exists, it has a role in ensuring the transparency and accountability of government and that it offers as a role model to the sector on what collaboration can look like,” she reported.
Ms Zanella then proceeded to share feedback on areas where the Alliance could do better.
“At times the Alliance needed to transfer more talk into action, sometimes there was a lack of clarity about some of the working groups and some of the tasks were too big.”
Participants also felt a lack of focus or clear outcomes within the working groups resulted in conversations being lost and people felt a level of frustration with this. For instance, the employment working group had begun the challenge of improving employment opportunities for the homeless. While an important initiative, it was suggested looking at a specific aspect of an employment space would achieve greater results rather than taking an approach to the very complex issue in its entirety.
At the other table Mark Glasson, CEO at Anglicare WA reported on the feedback from the second group.
Mr Glasson stated a considerable amount of time was spent talking about the role of lived experience within the Alliance.
“We talked about the concept of a Council of Lived Experience … and whether that fits with the Alliance or whether it fits more immediately with Shelter WA,” Mr Glasson said. Bringing in the lived experience group to oversee the work and direction of the various working groups early on could create greater benefits in the approaches being taken.
Another topic discussed was should a standard apply to membership, so people who wish to join are really committed to the end goals of the Alliance.
This feedback will help the Alliance to set the new direction into the coming year as it moves into the next phase. The Facilitating Group will be renamed as the WAAEH Collaborative Lead Group and its membership will be opened up to other partners. A process of Expressions of Interest will go out shortly to Alliance Partners.
If you are interested in becoming a partner – then please go to our website and register.