Training and Leadership: 2020-2021

 

The Year in Review

 

In this second year of COVID-influenced adaptation, PAN’s Training and Leadership department continued with virtual learning, ensuring our events and trainings were learner-focused, engaging, and meaningful. We are pleased to report that community response to working exclusively online has been positive, and there are definitely some bonuses. Organizations with small teams that would be compromised by multiple staff traveling to attend in person events were able to accommodate time for members to attend virtually.

Stacy, Marc (with Janet), and Monte

We look forward to returning to in-person events, and are hopeful that can happen in the spring of 2022. Timing will be determined by public health orders and recommendations.

 

Hepatitis C Leadership Project 

In its second year, the Hepatitis C Leadership Project gained traction and momentum in strengthening the leadership capacity of people with lived experience of hepatitis C. In July we celebrated 14 leaders with lived experience from across Canada coming together to participate in the Hepatitis C Leadership Pilot Program for community-building, leadership skills development, and peer connection. PAN’s sights were set on creating a memorable and empowering experience and the open-mindedness, passion and compassion of the participants charted the course.  All 14 people graduated and their feedback will be instrumental in shaping future offerings.

Building towards the training, we hosted a weekly peer discussion group, a focus group event and worked alongside the advisory committee whose hearts and lived experience we graciously thank for building precedents towards a truly successful pilot training.

Some highlights of sharing from the project:

Results of the Hepatitis C Leadership Pilot Program

REACH Nexus blog post- PAN’s Hepatitis C Leadership Project

Hepatitis C Testing Technologies Visual Resource

Charting the Map: a reference for peer navigators

Got a Minute for Hepatitis C?

From discovery to cure: recognizing an arc of change of hepatitis C,

Opportunity in question

We are currently focusing on innovative ways to package up the work from the pilot training for self directed learning that will be made available to the PAN community and beyond. Stay tuned for updates via the News and Community Events section of our website.

We continue to be grateful for project support from the Vancouver Foundation.

 

Positive Leadership Development Institute

The Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDI) provides training for people living with HIV in BC. Since the launch of the program, 251 people have completed Core Leadership Training: Who am I as a leader? PLDI features three main modules: Core Leadership Training, Bored? Get on Board! (board governance training) and Communication Skills Training. Due to COVID-19, this year was focused on connecting PLDI graduates through multiple interactive support and skills building sessions (public speaking, presentation skills, and participant Ignite talks).  2021 also saw the launch of a new PLDI-IDLP National Alliance website – PLDI.ca and a new promotional video.

The PAN PLDI training team, and our partners through the PLDI-IDLP National Alliance, spent much of the year rigorously adapting the in-person Core Leadership training curriculum to an online format, including both interactive Zoom sessions and self-paced modules via Brightspace, an online learning platform. The inaugural online pilot launched concurrently in BC, Quebec and Ontario this past June. In BC a spirited group of 16 people embarked on the new online blended learning leadership adventure. Participants are excited to continue their PLDI journey with future trainings.

PAN is grateful to announce that we were successful in our application for PHAC’s Community Action Fund Community Alliance. We will continue to work with the Ontario AIDS Network and COCQ-SIDA (Quebec) for another five years of funding starting in April 2022.

“There may be nothing more important for our community than supporting people living with HIV to become leaders.” This is the lead in to a pozcast episode featuring the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDI).

We would like to acknowledge the outstanding PAN PLDI training team: K. Webster, Berta, Monte Strong, John Dub, Val Nicholson and Dakota Descoteaux.

 

Capacity Building Events and Virtual Learning

We had another full year of events and trainings, albeit virtual in nature versus in-person. Keep reading for some highlights from the year.

In December of last year we hosted a three part virtual event, Alcohol: Community Trends and Impact, in collaboration with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR). Why a focus on alcohol? Alcohol is a socially acceptable, government sanctioned drug, but in so many ways is treated very differently, passively some might argue, than other drugs.  But with notable exceptions of course, we don’t treat everyone the same when it comes to alcohol use – class, race, just to name a couple, are factors in who we deem to be drinking acceptably or appropriately.

Our hope for the day was to have a wide ranging dialogue about alcohol, the costs and impacts, but also how we can do a better job of meeting the needs of those with severe alcohol dependence by looking at some approaches to alcohol harm reduction. We featured three sessions: Alcohol in Community: Cost and Impact Overview; Managed Alcohol Programs (MAPs); and a panel discussion on Alcohol Harm Reduction Panel. An extensive list of resources was also gathered for this event and can be found here, along with recordings from the three sessions for on-demand viewing.

As part of our KnowledgeConnect webinar series, in February we partnered with Gwen Haworth from Trans Care BC to host a webinar titled Build Your Trans-Friendly Services. Gwen shared key terms and concepts, strategies for supporting gender diverse individuals and practical tips for providing an inclusive and gender- affirming program and organization.

This year’s Educators’ Roundtable (formerly known as the Educators’ Forum) looked a little different from years past. Due to COVID the event was a virtual event. An important function of the Educators’ Roundtable is bringing educators together face to face to share and learn from each other, to provide an opportunity for networking and interregional knowledge sharing. We tried to infuse this year’s virtual event with that same energy and spirit and we would like to acknowledge Amanda Tallio, Daniel Sands, Alexis Hekker and Shelley Taylor for their assistance with helping to build the program. Their experience and knowledge with community-based work was an important guiding star.

The Roundtable featured a special keynote by Melanie Rivers, Indigenous mixed media artist, instructor, and Expressive Arts Therapist from the Squamish First Nation. Day 2 featured a hands on workshop titled Practical tools and tips for providing workshops in an online format, and a panel called Health Promotion that Connects. The final day of the three-day event featured a film screening and Talking Circle with Martin Morberg, the film’s creator, and film participants as they discussed their film Healing Inner Voices.  Marnie Scow, an Indigenous harm reduction consultant, provided the moving and powerful closing keynote for the 2021 Educators’ Roundtable – Relationship with Substance. Most sessions were recorded for on-demand viewing and can be viewed here, along with a number of resources to accompany the presentations and learnings from the event.

These represent just a few highlights from the year, but we invite and encourage you to visit the resources section of our website for recordings and resource material from this past year for other webinars that we hosted.

Special thanks to the core members of the Leadership and Capacity Building Team: Janet Madsen, Marc Seguin and Monte Strong. As always we want to acknowledge the “wisdom in the room” – our event participants, our member organizations, community partners and allies. Our work was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada Community Action Fund and the Vancouver Foundation.

For more information on Training and Leadership programs and events, contact Stacy Leblanc, Director of Capacity Building Initiatives, [email protected].

 

 

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Image: Brett Jordan Unsplash