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Dufferin County Community Services and HCIA received OMSSA award for the DC MOVES collaborative initiative for:
Demonstrating a contribution to the advancement of human services integration
DC MOVES is a "made in Dufferin" initiative and collaboration between Dufferin County Community Services and Headwaters Communities in Action (HCIA) formed to strengthen our ability across our unique rural / urban composition to: uncover opportunities to identify and develop solutions to local issues; identify and address service gaps; create a sense of agency cohesiveness and ultimately enhance access to services in our community - recognizing we are "better together". DC MOVES is a response to the growing awareness of the challenges residents face in navigating an increasingly complex and changing human services landscape in Dufferin County. These challenges can deter a person's desire and ability to connect with an appropriate service provider and, in turn, create further challenges. To provide better service, all agencies and their staff must be equipped with local human service provider information, knowledge transfer opportunities and have the big picture of human services in Dufferin County.
Our vision is to develop a unified human service presence, where agencies and residents of Dufferin County are aware of local programs and services, and have greater capacity to effectively access them. A DC MOVES Coordinator, jointly with three Pillar Leads, plans and executes the work,
guided by a Leadership Table and supported by participating organizations comprised of agencies, not for profit organizations and local municipalities.
Demonstrating a contribution to the advancement of local service system management
DC MOVES provides the integrated platform for Managing, Organizing, and Validating Engagement Strategies focused on the three priority pillars - Community Wellbeing, Poverty Reduction and Resource Sharing. DC MOVES connects the broader human service community to share activities and information through a twice monthly news bulletin What's On The Moves with a current reach of over 250 recipients and through hosting quarterly Forums with the potential to connect over 100 participating members comprised of human service providers, local municipalities and engaged citizens designed to continually advance our collective knowledge regarding services, agencies, and initiatives and to provide a platform for engagement to increase opportunities for collaboration. Presented under the DC MOVES identity, our unique logo and tag line "Better Together", to date we have been successful in collaborating for the submission of three grant applications, and two Ministry consultation responses. Initiatives organized under each pillar have provided shared opportunities and benefits across the pillars. We bring together local expertise and link to regional resources in Public Health and our LHIN. Undertaking a Report on Poverty provided local data identifying what poverty looks like in Dufferin County giving us a framework to understand our rural needs and create awareness by cascading this out to the community through presentations to upper and lower tier municipal councils, and hosting a Community Poverty Reduction Summit. To enhance capacity we provided a shared community workshop introducing the Bridges out of Poverty program, and introduced MoveItOn - a joint process with our Habitat for Humanity ReStore facilitating the movement of surplus workplace supplies between DC MOVES participating agencies, in response to another identified and shared priority, we are in the process of establishing a Community Foundation.
Congratulations !!!!
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