The vision of the Healthy Communities Partnership is “Healthy people in Lanark, Leeds & Grenville, who live, learn, work and play in healthy communities.”
The partnership works towards this vision by:

• Identifying priorities for policy development
• Supporting partnerships through training, networking and collaboration
• Assisting in collaborative grant applications

The Rideau Valley Boots and Baskets rug hooking group has completed an interpretative, artistic representation of our vision.

See the great photos below:

The preliminary brainstorming sessions:

The final piece:

On October 21, 2010, Healthy Communities Partnership Day, over 85 community partners gathered to:

• collaborate
• populate the local network map
• create a vision for a Healthy Lanark, Leeds and Grenville
• receive, discuss and give input on the Community Profile
• join the Healthy Communities Partnership: Lanark, Leeds and Grenville.

On January 6, 2011, those community partners who expressed interest in joining a core group were invited to participate in a priority setting process.

• Community Picture Summary

This resulted in a vision and 2 recommended actions for each of the 6 priority areas.

• Click here to view the resulting visions and recommended action areas:
  
  Healthy Communities Partnership: Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Vision Statements & Recommended Actions February 2011

At the same time, two priority areas for the partnership’s work in 2011 were chosen, based on what community members and agencies had emphasized: physical activity, sport and recreation, and mental well-being and resiliency.

In March, 2011, a community partner day was held to look at the network mapping results, develop an overview of a governance or organization in order to complete work, and to solicit input into the policy directions for the priority areas chosen. Partners agreed that the Healthy Communities Partnership should operate using a constellation model of governance. The basic idea of the constellation model is to avoid creating new structures to get work done. Instead, it looks at how communities and organizations are already working together and supports those networks, coalitions and groups in working towards shared goals. Rather than create sub-committees, we form ad hoc groups to accomplish specific, time-limited objectives when we need them. For that reason, a Stewardship Group was formed to keep things moving forward and to encourage collaboration in three areas:

• the development and promotion of a Healthy Communities Charter
• physical activity, sport and recreation
• mental well being and resiliency.