Transcript - slide 2

As we talked about changing our system, the first thing that we did was try to define our vision, mission, and core values. We spent a good part of a year working on that project. [We] involved everyone at all levels of the organization in the discussion of what our vision should be and what it meant.

We also got buy-in from our Board and Administration. The Board approved our vision statement so that the staff, providers, and other stakeholders would know that the vision was approved from the highest level of the organization. Then, we made sure that our vision was visible. We made bookmarks, laminated them, and made those available for all staff. Then, we took pieces of the core values and placed them around the agency on signs, for example: "Control," "Choice," "Responsibility."We made sure that people had those out in front of them so that they could remember them in their day-to-day work. The other important thing is that we used those core values in our vision, mission, and all of our decision-making. If we had to make an important systems change decision, even a policy decision, or an operational day-to-day decision, we went back to the vision, mission, and core values to guide that decision if we were having trouble deciding what to do.