From this week, the Beacon Strategies team will be implementing social distancing measures to ensure the health and safety of our staff and their families, and to help contribute to slowing the transmission of COVID-19. Our team will employ remote working arrangements and work closely with our client partners to ensure we continue to deliver on our current projects and to explore and take on new work.

The aim of Changemakers Spotlight is to develop and share insight that showcases ‘how’ great things happen and profile some of the people leading change across the health and social services sector. In this edition we’d like to introduce Paul Martin - Executive Manager (Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs) at Brisbane North PHN.

Needs assessment is a term that you have most likely heard of if you work for a local government or council. However, what exactly is it, why should you consider conducting one and what is the best approach? 

Community action plans are akin to road maps for implementing community-led change. They identify what will be done, who will do it and how it will be done. They describe exactly what a community wants to accomplish, how it will do so and the resources needed to be successful. They become a framework for implementing topic specific activities within a community, all of which are community-owned.

We (community development and engagement specialists) focus our efforts day in day out, trying to get people involved in community. We try to get them interested. However how can volunteer resource centres keep spontaneous community volunteers engaged and interested in volunteering when there isn't  the impetus of disaster activation?

With visibility comes accountability and scrutiny, and we believe that through regular evaluation, local governments can continuously improve the programs and services they deliver and generate greater impact for their communities We understand that evaluation can be an unfamiliar concept for many. So let’s get started. What type of programs and service can be evaluated in your local government?

Our most vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians experience life in a vastly different way to the least disadvantaged. Right across the life course, starting from life in the womb, disadvantage exists.

Just over six months ago, Beacon Strategies started on a journey of re-discovering how our organisation works. This post shares what we’ve learnt from the changes we’ve made to our operating system—teams rule, limiting work in progress, working in sprints, retros and working in public—which have had a big impact on how we deliver high quality consulting services to our client partners.

The Beacon Strategies team (Rebecca Patterson and Mitchell Stalker) took a brief three day site visit to Cairns (Tuesday 22nd of January - Thursday 24th of January) to formally commence the the development of a suicide prevention community action plan for the region (on behalf of Northern Queensland PHN).