As an Organization I feel that we manage to get the consultation process right most of the time but then there are times like today when one realizes that in an effort to meet funding requirements and deadlines we make decisions without knowing whether it suits the community or not.
Today is a case in point. We needed to have a meeting with a group of our family facilitators and last week we phoned each of them to say that WE had decided the meeting date would be today, Tuesday 2nd November. Not one of them told us at the time that the day was not suitable, however this morning we were told that it is in fact pension day today and thus our meeting venue would probably be used for pension payouts and our family facilitators would either be collecting their own grants or assisting the families that they work with to do so.
Initially I was irritated and wondered why we weren't told sooner. However when thinking about it I was reminded that we didn't ask the facilitators if the day was suitable for them and we just informed them of the date. I know that if we had asked them they would have given us an alternative date there and then. I then began to think about how easy it is to slip back into old ways of thinking where we tell communities what and how they should do things.
Such a small incident has made me very aware that we constantly need to evaluate how and why we do the things that we do. We also need to reflect as to whether we are actually achieving what we set out to achieve. It always amazes me how reflecting on such a simple incident can bring much insight into our behaviour.
