City of Mississauga Staff Win Award for Outstanding Facilitation Work

City of Mississauga employees Karyn Stock-MacDonald, Business and Innovation Coach and Shawn Matheson, Assistant Chief, Professional Development & Accreditation, Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services (MFES) are the City’s most recent award winners.

Stock-MacDonald and Matheson both received the International Association of Facilitators (IAF)’s 2016 Facilitation Impact Award’s (FIA) Silver Award for the Mental Health Strategy for Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services.

“We are thrilled to be recognized by the IAF for the important facilitation work we have done on this strategy,” said Stock-MacDonald. “This project is an example of how the City drives innovation through facilitation and moves us forward.”

“On the front lines, emergency services employees deal with traumatic situations,” said Matheson. “The facilitation approach we used has resulted in access to new resources and support for emergency workers.”

The Mental Health Strategy resulted in a new Shared Vision for MFES that will help eliminate the stigma of mental health and provide access to support services for emergency service workers.  Stock-MacDonald and Matheson lead a project team comprised of a cross-section of City staff from MFES, Human Resources, health providers and experts.

“The Facilitation Impact Awards are tangible proof that organizations or groups that use professional facilitation with their projects achieve astounding results.” said Noel Tan, Global Chair, IAF. “A scan of the various award submissions point to the fact that skilled facilitation and the deployment of group process methodologies contribute to significant shifts and results in client systems. This can be experienced through raised levels of stakeholder engagement and joint solution of issues and a greater focus on measuring what it means to bring impact!”

Facilitation tactics noted in the award submission included:

• a new shared vision for a mentally healthy workplace
• solutions to obstacles and new strategies to realize the vision
• innovative World Cafés to roll out, strengthen and implement the strategy.

Stock-MacDonald and Matheson’s facilitation approach resulted in the following project outcomes:

• implementing a new mental health strategy
• making the discussion of mental health a normal part of the work environment
• creating and expanding mental health programs for emergency services workers
• achieving compliance  with Provincial Psychological Health and Safety Standards
• contributing to the City’s goal of fostering a healthy, safe, inclusive and respectful Workplace.

About International Association of Facilitators (IAF)

The mission of the IAF is to promote, support and advance the art and practice of professional facilitation.

Facilitation is a profession rapidly taking its unique place alongside those of consulting and training. IAF was formed by a group of professionals desiring an avenue for interchange, professional development, trend analysis and peer networking.

Since its beginnings in 1994, the IAF has grown to over 1200 members in more than 63 countries. IAF members work in government, non-profit, educational, community, and corporate environments and hold positions as consultants, teachers, in-house facilitators, negotiators, organisational specialists, coaches, and more.

Facilitation Impact Awards

The overall purpose of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Facilitation Impact Awards initiative is to:

• promote the awareness of the role of facilitation in achieving positive, impactful results
• reward the use of facilitation within organisations and communities
• recognize excellence in facilitation practices
• acknowledge outstanding contributions by IAF members
• promote IAF and its conferences as vehicles for advancing the profession of facilitation.

In keeping with the spirit of the IAF, the Facilitation Impact Awards is a non-competitive, inclusive awards program designed to highlight how organisations have successfully used facilitation to bring about positive and valuable impact.