Occupations ~ Family Empowerment Council ~ New Dynamics
Vision, Mission, Values, and Behaviors (VMVB™)
VISION
We are catalysts of change. We partner with families, adults, and children. We are committed to creating an environment where people with diverse needs have hope, feel safe, and have the opportunity to grow through informed choices.
We are a unique and integrated system of quality services driven by passionate and dedicated people. Our commitment is to deliver value to all of our shareholders, including the people we serve, volunteers, employees, contributors, contractors, vendors, customers, and the community.
We are a premier organization united by mutual commitment. We promote advocacy, employment, recovery, rehabilitation, reunification, health and wellness, personal development, cultural equality, and an enhanced quality of life. We live and breathe a creative, positive, and innovative environment, which makes our growing organization the place where people choose to work, volunteer, and receive services.
MISSION
We assist individuals in achieving their potential through a vast array of services that are accessible and delivered in a compassionate manner. We build trust and nurture relationships by respecting the individual’s and family’s needs, desires, and dreams.
• Through collaboration, listening, and shared decision-making, everyone’s voice is heard.
• We provide a safe forum for open, honest, and respectful dialogue.
• We provide accessibility to needed services and supports 24 hours a day.
• We have ongoing education, advocacy, training, and development that leads to professional, personal, and social enrichment.
• We value and support everyone’s right to make informed choices.
• Our proactive and preventive interventions embrace rehabilitation and recovery and promote stability.
We have designed a system of quality services on the principles of mutual respect, unwavering honesty, and strong relationships that are built on a foundation of personal and professional integrity.
• We identify and implement best practices through our own successes, involvement in trade associations, participation in conferences and trainings, ongoing education, evidenced-based practices, and benchmarking against peer organizations.
• We have seamless integration of services.
• We strive to collaborate with outside providers and partners who share our values and commitment and to influence all others.
• We cultivate dynamic relationships with various government officials, funding sources, public and private companies, as well as the greater business community to optimize future opportunities.
• We uphold a formal compliance program that creates a learning environment and exceeds industry standards.
• We are good stewards of our financial and other resources and never put the viability of the organization at risk.
• We hire only passionate, dedicated, and skilled staff.
• We treat everyone with dignity and respect.
• We are dedicated to high ethical standards.
We create and inspire intelligent growth and development by anticipating and responding to the evolving needs of our community. We leverage our core excellencies and direct our resources to consistently deliver the best services in order to achieve successful outcomes.
• We build our team on the principle of mutual commitment.
• We proactively identify and implement innovative and sustainable services by listening to and learning from individuals, youth, and families.
• We advocate to eliminate barriers to services and to promote cultural equality.
• We provide and promote advocacy and wide-ranging, consumer-directed services.
• We utilize strength-based assessments and approaches.
• We create an atmosphere of intelligent risk-taking.
• We honestly assess and learn from our mistakes and missed opportunities.
• We embrace challenging endeavors that align with and add value to our vision.
• We provide opportunities whereby people can enter into gainful and fulfilling employment and receive comprehensive benefits.
• We focus on human investment that embraces whole life symmetry for all of our staff, volunteers, and people we serve.
• We have a pulse on internal and external community needs by engagement with and participation in community outreach.
VALUES & BEHAVIORS
P People-Focused
A Adaptability
S Sharing
S Safe & Respectful Environment
I Integrity
O Open & Honest Communication
N New Opportunities
A Accountability
T Training, Education, & Staff Development
E Excellence
PEOPLE-FOCUSED: We support and help meet the needs of individuals, youth, families, and our community. We are a diverse group of people who are unified by sharing core values and our vision of a society where discrimination no longer exists.
In living this value, we will not:
• Take each other for granted
• Limit ourselves or others
• Take close-minded or inflexible positions
• Allow the system to be a priority over people
• Make assumptions about others
• Jump to conclusions
• Reject or dismiss based on stereotypes
• Tolerate bias, stereotype, or discrimination in any form to go unchallenged
In living this value, we will:
• Inspire hope
• Encourage personal choice and individual voice
• Always remember that people are our first priority
• Empathize with, appreciate, and effectively utilize differences in others
• Sincerely respect the cultures of others
• Be inclusive of diversity of thought and culture
• Assess, understand, and challenge biases and prejudices
• Build coalitions with providers and colleagues
• Develop linguistic and cultural competencies
• Demand equality
• Be resourceful in our service delivery
• Catch people doing good
• Expect and support employee involvement
• Allow ourselves to be influenced beyond empathic listening to true understanding
• Hire people based on passion before, but not in lieu of, competence
• Discover enjoyment in our work and help others to do the same
ADAPTABILITY: We unleash creativity and embrace change as the foundation for innovation, growth, and development.
In living this value, we will not:
• Discount, dismiss, or ridicule the ideas of others
• Be locked into the old ways of doings things
• Be deterred by failure
In living this value, we will:
• Invite curiosity and practice creative tenacity
• Be resilient in the face of adversity
• Expect and support creativity from every person every day
• Recognize, encourage, and explore new and creative ways to implement change
• Embrace flexibility to adapt to changes and new needs
• Always question why and explore new and different ways to add value
• Encourage intelligent risk-taking
• Dedicate resources to optimize all available technologies throughout the organization
SHARING: We acknowledge that together we accomplish much more than we could alone. We build effective teams through power-sharing and involvement.
In living this value, we will not:
• Allow our courage to be stripped away
• Allow fear to influence our decisions
• Allow negative attitudes to destroy team spirit
• Retain staff or volunteers who do not share or demonstrate our values
In living this value, we will:
• Ensure that everyone’s voice is heard
• Build mutual trust by collaborating with every shareholder
• Define partnership as inclusion of every shareholder that has a stake in the work
• Value positive discontent, fairness and effective leadership
• Exhibit fierce cooperation to achieve our goals
• Collaborate closely with others who share our values
• Respect initiative and avoid micro-managing
• Encourage leadership at every level
SAFE & RESPECTFUL ENVIRONMENT: We create and maintain a safe, secure, and healthy environment. We assume personal responsibility to seek out and correct unsafe situations. We will take into consideration both emotional and physical risks.
In living this value, we will not:
• Put anyone in harm’s way
• Tolerate unsafe acts, conditions, or behaviors
• Take unnecessary or uninformed risks
• Be careless with or jeopardize records or documents
• Be disrespectful or condescending in our words or actions
In living this value, we will:
• Cultivate collaboration to protect and value one another
• Provide an environment of mutual respect and understanding
• Nurture others and foster security
• Take a non-judgmental approach to all safety concerns
• Protect confidentiality
• Understand and adhere to policies and regulations
• Proactively stop, look, assess, and correct unsafe conditions immediately
• Provide swift and effective corrective action when resolving incidents
• Continually improve our shared environment
• Promote and model practices that lead to health and wellness and recovery
• Be mindful of how we utilize resources
INTEGRITY: We will conduct ourselves in the highest ethical manner. We will foster unquestioned credibility by being honest with everyone at all times. Our integrity includes living and standing up for our values with passion.
In living this value, we will not:
• Allow ourselves to be corrupted in any circumstance
• Tolerate unethical behavior
• Cover up the truth
In living this value, we will:
• Seek truth
• Have consistency of character and purpose
• Promote truth through respect and honesty
• Earn trust through our character and behavior
• Act with integrity and expect no less of others
OPEN & HONEST COMMUNICATION: We prove on a daily basis that open, timely communication fosters positive relationships and creates a culture of trust and competence.
In living this value, we will not:
• Ridicule
• Dismiss the ideas of others without consideration
• Criticize individuals in public
• Be afraid of repercussions in speaking the truth
• Hold unnecessary meetings or require unnecessary reports
• Substitute written or electronic communication when personal interaction is required
• Engage in practices that inhibit communication
• Hoard information that could help people to add or create value
• Allow issues of importance to go unaddressed
In living this value, we will:
• Invite input from all shareholders
• Listen without judgment or prejudice
• Express our ideas with candor and respect
• Provide safe forums for all voices to be heard
• Filter all information that does not add value
• Ask people what they need to know and then help them get it
• Communicate in a timely manner
• Ask “why” to clarify purpose
NEW OPPORTUNITIES: We promote change to allow growth and address unmet needs. We continue to evolve and improve the scope and quality of our organization.
In living this value, we will not:
• Be complacent or resist change
• Limit the doors that we will open
• Take on activities, projects, or business endeavors that are not aligned with our Vision and Mission or that do not have appropriate resources for implementation
In living this value, we will:
• Evaluate community needs and develop and enhance services accordingly
• Research and seek out new projects and opportunities that meet the changing needs of our community
• Work to improve the delivery services to create positives outcomes
• Support informed choices, advocacy, and self-direction
• Proactively implement and assess sustainable services
ACCOUNTABILITY: We are dedicated to keeping our mutual commitments to each other. We understand the impact that each of us has on the success and viability of our organization.
In living this value, we will not:
• Shift responsibility and blame to others
• Over-promise or under-deliver
• Unfairly or unjustly criticize
• Use methods that allow us to diffuse responsibility
In living this value, we will:
• Live our Vision
• Take initiative
• Do what we say and fulfill our obligations to each other
• Take responsibility for our own words and display respect in our interactions
• Promote self-control, self-governance, and self-motivation
• Be responsible, knowledgeable, and compliant with regulations
• Find answers and resources to do our best
• Maintain personal and professional boundaries
TRAINING, EDUCATION, & STAFF DEVELOPMENT: Continuous education and learning are critical to achieving excellencies in services provided, educating the individuals we serve, and developing smart and effective staff, teams and leaders. We value the staff as dedicated investors. We invest in their happiness and prosperity to assure our ongoing success.
In living this value, we will not:
• Allow staff members to be left untrained and unprepared for their roles
• Allow complacency or mediocrity to stand in the way of higher performance
• Think, talk or act like we know it all
In living this value, we will:
• Live and breathe a creative, positive, and enthusiastic learning environment
• Be open-minded and receptive to any source of new knowledge
• Make our agency the place where people prefer to work and volunteer
• Make use of the varying skills and talents of all shareholders
• Insist on cross-training and sharing of knowledge
• Provide both flexibility and sufficient resources to enable people to achieve whole-life symmetry
EXCELLENCE: We demonstrate excellence by our commitment to responsibility, accountability, and high performance. We believe that passion is a choice driving us to achieve results and a path to add value. Excellence means working with enthusiasm, energy, vigor, and sacrifice to build something exceptional. A passion for excellence is characterized fundamentally by focus, intensity, persistence, care, and service.
In living this value, we will not:
• Endorse complacency or the notion of “good enough”
• Be satisfied with what we have achieved
• Promote cheap consensus at the expense of improved performance
• Focus on productivity at the expense of people
• Allow passion to be diminished by apathy
• Accept people’s negative passion
• React too quickly to dismiss other people’s ideas
• Judge another’s passion by observable behavior such as constant activity, high animation, or putting in long hours
In living this value, we will:
• Expect everyone to be passionate about the organization, their work, and the people with whom they work and support
• Challenge the status quo
• Invoke enthusiasm and dedication in all of our endeavors
• Choose to work in an enthusiastic and energetic way
• Take responsibility if we see something that needs to be done, even if it is not in “our” area
• Recognize and reward strong performance
• Create a safe environment for intelligent risk-taking
• Focus on being results-oriented and accountable to our shareholders
• Celebrate successes large and small