What we're up to right now!
Learning Week is over at Iriss now. We spent three days in person, eating pastries and chatting about how our year was, things we celebrate and learn, how we keep aligned to our new strategy, using our new evaluation process, showcasing our skills and impact and what the next year could look like for us.
In a fast-paced environment, the instinct can be to act quickly, but without a shared understanding of where we have been, we could move in directions that are not fully aligned or as effective as they could be. In having a learning week, we are valuing and including reflective practice into our work, to help us be more strategic, more collaborative, and ultimately, more influential in the change we seek to create.
Exploring the approach of Research Practice Partnerships
Back in 2009, I was a fresh faced researcher, working as an intern in the Office of the Chief Researcher in the Scottish Government. I was at an event listening to a talk by the then Chief Social Researcher, Diana Wilkinson. She was presenting on what influences policy makers to make the decisions that they do. There was a very sobering slide on how much politicians were influenced by evidence within their decision-making.
I’m a third of the way through the practice hours needed for accreditation with the International Coaching Federation after completing my coaching training. While there are still many hours to go, I was reflecting on what I’ve noticed so far from my coaching practice (whilst not compromising confidentiality and the ICF Code of Ethics!).
Over the last 10 years we have been lucky to have an ongoing relationship with the Regional Municipality of Durham and Durham College in Canada. In that time we have worked alongside colleagues in the Innovation and Research for the Social Services Department in the Municipality and colleagues at the Social Impact Hub in the College.
Last week, we hosted our annual conference - A day working with Iriss. The hopes of this day was for attendees to hear about how Iriss does things (the ins and outs), see some project examples on how our partner created change and work through some of their own challenges. We wanted participants to be able to take away something tangible and practical from the day, a solution or step towards implementing their own change.
