I’ve been working on my own business interests fulltime since 1990, primarily with Liz Yorke and Associates. As these business interests have expanded over the years, I’ve noticed that quite a number of people have asked me questions about what I do on a day to day basis, how I do what I do, and how I create and implement business development ideas. I decided to try to answer these questions by including a couple of articles in this issue of The Yorke Report - have a look at The Hatfield Centre and Liz Yorke and Associates, and let me know what you think.

In this issue:

• Housing Issues in Toronto
• Community-based Services
• Functional Program Plans in Thunder Bay
• The Hatfield Centre
• Standing Offer for Consultant Support Services in Nova Scotia
• Liz Yorke and Associates
• The Beach House on Hatfield Road
• Tons of Blueberries in 2003!
• Subscribe to The Yorke Report
• Contact us

Housing Issues in Toronto

The issues of affordable housing and housing for homeless people continue to be pressing concerns in Toronto. We are closely following two developments, which we believe will not only benefit direct recipients, but also will enhance the quality of life in Toronto. These issues are directly related to the kinds of issues LY&A deals with in consulting projects — planning and delivery of health and human services, governance and operation of these services, and issues of fairness and social justice.

The Toronto Community Housing Corporation introduced its Community Management Plan in October 2002. The corporation’s mandate is to provide affordable rental housing for low and moderate-income households. The corporation plans, over time, to become a network of community-based business units, each responsive to the neighbourhood and community in which it operates. The plan is for each to engage with tenants and neighbours to develop plans that meet the needs and priorities of tenants. TCHC’s strategic objectives include creating financial sustainability, implementation of community-based service delivery, maintaining and improving the physical condition of buildings, establishing healthy communities, increasing affordable housing, and creating a healthy organization.

Strategic initiatives related to implementing a community model included identifying effective community housing units, developing governance models, developing a structure for the organization to support the community model, developing an accountability framework, building capacity to realize the potential of the community model, and implementing a tenant participation system.

Future issues of The Yorke Report will include updated information about the corporation’s progress on this innovative strategy.

Housing for homeless individuals in Toronto is the other significant issue we are continuing to monitor. In December 1999, the Honourable Claudette Bradshaw, Canada’s Co-ordinator on Homelessness, announced the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative (SCPI). The initiative makes available, nation-wide, a total of $305 million over a three-year period to alleviate and prevent homelessness.

Human Resources Development Canada asked the City of Toronto to administer SCPI funds in Toronto, and the City agreed to take on this responsibility in June 2002. The city organized a Community Reference group to provide in-put into a Community Plan for Homelessness in Toronto. Five main funding envelopes were established to guide implementation of SCPI, including: Transitional Housing; Emergency Shelter; Small Capital Improvements; Homeless Programs and Services; and Community Planning and Research.

The City of Toronto developed a Housing and Homelessness Research Framework to ensure research initiatives funded through SCPI are part of a broader plan for housing and homelessness research. The plan focuses on initiatives that have a lasting benefit beyond the three-year SCPI time frame and that make a strategic investment in the policy, program or service delivery infrastructure of the City. Targeted research initiatives fall within one of these three priority areas:

• Meeting the needs of people at risk
• Improving the effectiveness of service
• Creating and preserving affordable housing.

Watch future issues of The Yorke Report for more information about how the plan is unfolding

Community-based Services

All Canadians surely must be pleased to see the increased emphasis on community-based care for seniors and the physically disabled. LY&A has been involved with many projects related to community-based care, including the following recent projects:

Alzheimer Society, Ontario — South Central Counselling Policy Review
The Alzheimer Society plays a vital role in improving the quality of life of people with Alzheimer Disease or related dementias and their caregivers. LY&A is reviewing the Society’s draft counselling policies, which will serve as a template or example for all 39 chapters in Ontario.

A Stakeholder Analysis for the Community Care Access Centre of Peel
Robert Sargalis worked with LY&A on this project. This project examined the knowledge physicians, pharmacists and representatives from agencies which serve multicultural communities have about the CCAC and its services.

A Housing and Transportation Needs Survey for The Friends, Parry Sound
The Friends is a not-for-profit organization which provides supportive housing, attendant services, outreach, respite, and various other community-based programs in Parry Sound/Muskoka for persons requiring long-term health services. Residents of their supportive housing units are individuals who require long-term health services, and who are able to direct/manage their own care. The objective of The Friends in providing these services is to promote optimal health, independence, and quality of life and participation in community life.

At present, The Friends’ resources and services include:

• accessible units and a respite unit in the Forest Hill Complex, in Parry Sound;
• attendant services for tenants with physical disabilities in Oakwood Heights Apartments in Bracebridge and for individuals living in Forest Hill Apartment Complex;
• accessible units in Huntsville; an Outreach Program which provides Personal Support and Homemaking Services and Attendant Services (in the home, workplace, educational institution, and/or in The Friends respite unit) for the physically disabled;
• Life Skills Program which provides assistance to adults with physical disabilities for personal development, goal setting and life skills;
• adult day program, which provides social and recreational activities in a group setting for elderly adults or adults with physical disabilities (those either living alone or in the community or with a caregiver);

LY&A and Lapointe Consulting Inc. worked together on A Housing and Transportation Needs Survey. Key outcomes included a profile of individuals with physical disabilities in the Parry Sound/Muskoka area, who could be eligible for The Friends’ services; an inventory of housing and transportation services available in the area; assessment of housing and transportation needs in the area; high level recommendations for future planning and related action steps.

This project was both a pleasure to work on and extremely interesting. The Parry Sound/Muskoka area is huge, bigger than Prince Edward Island, and the population is spread across it in urban centres, small villages and rural areas. The area is absolutely beautiful, and working there has reinforced with us why people who need community-based services want to remain in their own area, on a long-term basis.

A Research Project to Identify the Needs & Service Gaps for Seniors in Peel
LY&A is working with Lapointe Consulting Inc. on a research project to identify the needs and service gaps for seniors in Peel. The overall objective of the project is to make the health service delivery system even more effective. The project is expected to result in development of new model(s) to enhance and address service needs in areas such as support seniors need while living at home, affordable housing or health care.

Peel Senior Link, which provides services to more than 1,000 seniors in the community, has taken a leadership role in facilitating the project. The project also involves various health-service agencies including long-term care facilities, hospitals, community and in-home support services, health planners and housing sectors.

Functional Program Plans in Thunder Bay

LY&A is working with Mike Yakamovich of Envirimed Inc. in the development of multifaceted functional programs for 38 longer-term specialized mental heath beds and a residential addictions facility for the St. Joseph's Care Group in Thunder Bay.   The 38 bed development is a result of the restructuring of mental health services within the region as a result of the impending closure of the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital.

This project fits right in with LY&A skills, such as conceptualizing long-range outcomes, developing and implementing strategies to attain desired goals, analysis of verbal information and written material, and ability to write reports. It also utilizes our experience with the planning, delivery and assessment of mental health and addiction services.

The Hatfield Centre

As many of you know, The Hatfield Centre is an evolving initiative for The Beach House on Hatfield Road in Nova Scotia. The Hatfield Centre is a virtual business centre and retreat which uses the Beach House and other local resources to provide: accommodation for corporate visitors; a unique seaside setting for retreats, meetings, working sessions; an innovative location for workshops and seminars for associations, organizations and the general public; and a lovely coastal setting for all kinds of celebrations.

The Hatfield Centre was developed from the same kinds of creative thinking and activities which LY&A teams bring to consulting projects. In fact, I think the experience of developing and working with LY&A projects was essential to create the concept of The Hatfield Centre. In a sense, I acted as my own management consultant in ways similar to the way LY&A provides services to external clients — including setting objectives and target dates, developing workplans and budgets, collecting information from key informants, assessing alternatives through discussions with other people, and report writing. As a result of the skills refined during this process, LY&A is in a greatly improved position to offer similar services to external clients.

As there has been significant interest in the Hatfield model and, in particular, many questions about how I got the idea and developed it, including a detailed article in this issue of The Yorke Report seemed like a good idea. Please feel free to send me your comments and ideas about opportunities you’d like to see developed to liz@lizyorke.com or call me at 416-481-4096.

The Hatfield Centre — Goals
The goal of developing The Hatfield Centre is to increase use of The Beach House on Hatfield Road in Nova Scotia during all four seasons of the year. When I was planning the Beach House in the late 90s, I considerably underestimated the high-season demand for high quality, upscale rental cottages, and over-estimated the demand for off-season rentals. This is the fifth year of rental operation, and demand for summer weeks and revenue have consistently increased. However, off-season rentals have presented more of a challenge, although fall 2003 is the best fall season yet.

Developing the Model
In the last couple of years, I put a great deal of effort into trying to increase traditional off-season rentals for the Beach House, including talking with other owners and looking at numerous web sites across Canada and the US for ideas. As far as I could see, everyone was having the same low occupancy rates and everyone was developing conventional strategies to try to attract business — sleigh rides, fireside fondues, gourmet weekends, cross-country skiing, reduced rates etc. I began to realize that these ideas were not working well enough, and that there must be lots of opportunities for new ideas — the challenge was to update these ideas.

I thought and thought about what to do about off-season rentals, wished that there were larger and different local resources and so on, and talked with various friends and colleagues both in Ontario and in the Maritimes about general strategies. None of us were able to come up with viable solutions. In the meantime, being an avid newspaper reader, I had been watching the evolution of some new and interesting ideas in Southern Ontario, particularly Weekends with Pamela Wallin at the Muskoka Sands Inn. These weekends consisted of wonderful accommodations and meals, a wellness activity, and a cultural event, customized to provide something special for participants in each weekend package. I thought this was an absolutely magnificent idea, and wanted to try out a variation of it at the Beach House. However, the first challenges were to figure out how to accommodate more than 6 or 8 people, and how to determine where events could be held. Meal preparation also initially presented a bit of a problem, but I saw this as a lesser challenge.

Eventually, it occurred to me that I had to build on what was available near the Beach House, and had to find a way to bring out the unique features of the shore and its communities. I started to apply the same sorts of strategy we do in consulting projects for LY&A — building on available resources and dreaming up a range of creative options. It took several months of thinking about it, writing draft business plans and talking to other people, but along the way it came to me that it would be possible to house people in a variety of locations (and that some people would like the privacy), that the old schoolhouse in Port Greville which is now the Community Centre or the Fundy Geological Museum in Parrsboro, would make ideal settings for large group activities, and that meals could be provided by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Fox River, Port Greville, Wards Brook Community Centre and by local restaurants in Parrsboro. I checked this out with various colleagues and decided that integrating these resources could provide an appealing seacoast experience which would be different than going to a conventional conference centre and which would also be a warmer, more personal, and more economical alternative. Think about it — if you live in an urban area like Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, you are used to going to conventional locations for conferences, meetings, workshops and so on — going to small coastal communities in Atlantic Canada could be an attractive alternative. The next step was to get busy and refine the ideas enough to move ahead.

The Model
The model for The Hatfield Centre incorporates community-development approaches to business development. The model is an informal integration of already existing resources in local private, not-for-profit and broader public sectors — other local rental cottages and B&Bs, restaurants, Fox River, Port Greville, Wards Brook Community Centre, local museums and other cultural and recreational resources, with resources already available at The Beach House on Hatfield Road.

I personally manage The Hatfield Centre and provide the impetus for all its services. I picked out a name, developed a web site (www.hatfieldcentre.com) and logo with the help of Jane Will of Spider People, and prepared a brochure — all to create an identity for these services, separate and apart from vacation rentals at the Beach House. I also contacted all the vacation rental properties in the Parrsboro area, and talked personally with each one about the concept and the benefits to them of participating in whatever kinds of activities developed in the future. I also contacted various other people, such as the Ladies Auxiliary of the Community Centre, Fundy Geological Museum, some of the local restaurants, and some of the cultural and recreational activities in the not-for-profit sector — to let them know what I was working on and how they could potentially benefit in the long term, as this initiative moves ahead.

This is how the model works — the Beach House is there for all The Hatfield Centre’s services and, as use of these services increases, other local businesses will benefit through increased off-season rentals - increased business for restaurants, galleries, stores and increased traffic and/or revenue for cultural, recreational and community activities. There is no cost to other parties for participating, although owners of accommodations are expected to pay a small referral fee only for accommodations booked for Hatfield Centre events. This helps to pay for expenses such as development and maintenance of the web site. Each accommodation is also listed, without charge, on the web site, and this includes a picture of their property.

The Hatfield Centre provides services for the private, not-for-profit and broader public sectors, such as:

Executive level seacoast accommodations for corporate visitors to Nova Scotia, for individuals, families, and small groups — primarily at the Beach House

Retreats for corporations, associations, organizations, in a private coastal setting, using either the Beach House or a combination of other local accommodations; the dining room at the Beach House is a great place for meetings and working sessions

Unique location for meetings, such as AGMs, shareholder meetings and others, using primarily the Beach House; the upstairs sun room can accommodate at least 40 people in rows

Secluded and comfortable setting for celebrations such as family and friends’ reunions, corporate parties, holiday parties, weddings and many others

Host for seminars and workshops either at the Beach House, for small groups, or at the Fox River, Port Greville, Wards Brook 100 year old Community Centre or the Fundy Geological Museum. The Ladies Auxiliary will provide a wonderful East Coast lunch of seafood chowder, home made baking powder biscuits or rolls, homemade pies, cookies and squares or local restaurants will provide light meals.

Open House in October 2002
I held a wonderful Open House in October to celebrate the start of The Hatfield Centre and to introduce the concept to the community. Invitations were sent out by e-mail and post and placed in local newspapers.

The Open House was very well covered by the media. Andrew Wagstaff of the Parrsboro Citizen attended the event.

All sectors were represented in those who attended — for example, Murray Scott, MLA and Speaker of the House in Nova Scotia; Doug Robinson mayor of Parrsboro and Lyle Yorke, deputy-mayor; John Robertson, Nova Scotia Business Inc. from the broader public sector; Gayle Shaw, partner in Shaw Country Market, Ebb Tide B&B and Ebb Tide II and Pat Bigger of Coach House B&B, from the private sector; Scott Burke and Alison Smith of Ship’s Company Theatre, from the not-for-profit cultural sector; and Barbara Ann Ryan and Margie McClelland of Cumberland Abilities Partnership Association in Amherst, from the not-for-profit service delivery sector.

Not only was the Open House a lot of fun, especially for Alison Smith and Pat Bigger who won door prizes, it was also very helpful in letting people across the province know about the Hatfield Centre model and the services available

Programs
We are presently working on a schedule of workshops for the 2004 season. These workshops will take several formats, and may include workshops sponsored fully or in-part by corporate partners, workshops provided in conjunction with local not-for-profit associations, organizations or workshops designed and provided by associations and other organizations — either for the general public or for their own memberships and staff. The ideas we are working on right now include:

• Marketing to Win
• Building Media Relationships
• Using the internet to market vacation properties
• Experiential workshop on quilting

To keep up to date on the workshop schedule, sign up for the Hatfield Centre newsletter.

The dining room is a wonderful setting for special meals!

The Beach House dining room is an ideal location for meetings, planning sessions, and other day-to-day business activities.

The Community Centre in Wards Brook provides a unique historical location for workshops and seminars

Fundy Geological Museum provides a unique modern location for workshops and seminars.

The Beach House provides comfortable accommodation for corporate visitors Visit The Hatfield Centre for more information and to find out about the workshops and seminars scheduled for 2003/04.

The Hatfield Centre — Focal Point for LY&A Activities in Eastern Canada
The Hatfield Centre is a tangible example of the kinds of creative thinking, persistence and tenacity, and skill set which LY&A teams bring to management consulting projects.

The Hatfield Centre is the focal point for LY&A activities in Atlantic Canada, including management consulting services, under the banner of Liz Yorke and Associates, my Ontario-based health and human services consulting firm.

Contact Us About The Hatfield Centre
If you’d like to discuss how you, your business, association or organization could use The Hatfield Centre services, get in touch with me at liz@lizyorke.com or call me at 416-481-4096.

Standing Offer for Consultant Support Services in Nova Scotia

We are thrilled that Liz Yorke and Associates has been selected to provide services under the Standing Offer for Consultant Support Services from 01 May 2003 to 30 April 2004 for Departments, Agencies and Commissions of the Province of Nova Scotia.

Liz Yorke and Associates

Liz Yorke and Associates, established in 1989, is a multi-dimensional health and human services management and organization development consulting firm. We assist clients to make better decisions for the future, based on the collection and analysis of significant information, specialized and objective advice built from broad experience and a high level of skill and workable ideas. With experience in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario, Liz Yorke and Associates provides services sensitive to the uniqueness of both urban and rural populations.

Our core consulting services include:

• Board and organization development
• Strategic planning and research projects
• Development and assessment of health and social services issues, programs and service systems
• Development, evaluation and review of institutional and community–based health and human services
• Facilitation services
• Proposal preparation
• Consultation with stakeholders

We welcome new clients and are always interested in discussing potential opportunities where our skills may be useful.

For more information about our services and projects, go to Liz Yorke and Associates or contact us at lizyorke@interlog.com or call 416-481-4096.

How To Design Project Steps & Workplans
People who don’t regularly use the services of external management consultants are often curious about the process for undertaking consulting projects. The following lists the kinds of steps we generally work through during assignments.

• Orientation to the Project
  We meet in person with our clients to confirm timelines and target dates, assemble background material, identify individuals and groups whom we expect to be involved with during the project, and to confirm business arrangements.
  
• Review of Background Material
  We read and assess background material either supplied by our clients, or assembled by members of our customized team.
  
• Develop a Detailed Workplan
  We write up a detailed workplan, which describes everything we plan to do for the project, and includes target dates for all activities. We discuss a written draft of the workplan with our clients, to make sure that everyone is in agreement with the process and to confirm dates for meetings, etc, and after the discussion, we revise the workplan to incorporate decisions made with our clients.
  
• Collection of Information
  We collect information from a range of sources, depending on the project. Sources include interviews, focus groups, mail-in or telephone surveys, assembly and review of written documents and common sense.
  
• Analysis of Collected Information
  The type of analysis for a project depends on the kind of project we are working on and the strategies we have used to assemble our information.
  
• Preparation of Draft and Final Reports
  We write drafts of reports and meet with our clients to discuss these drafts. Eventually, we are ready to finalize the written report and print and bind them.
  
• Presentation of Reports
  We keep in close touch with our clients when we are working on projects with them. Depending on the project, we make oral presentations about the project as we complete tasks described in our workplans and also when projects are finally fully completed.

How To Develop Solutions and Recommendations
LY&A teams pride themselves on developing creative and workable solutions and recommendations for complex problems. It is difficult to explain how anyone comes up with creative ideas and recommendations, but it does seem to depend on a range of factors. One of the most important factor in developing solutions and recommendations is to pick smart and creative people for consulting teams. It is also important to pick people with diverse experiences, so that new ideas are generated and different perspectives on a situation are explored. The other important factor is being tenacious and exploring all the potential options.

Once the team is selected, it is then imperative to spend the time required for everyone on the team to fully understand what the goals of the project are, the status of the situation, where additional information can be found, and what are the potential barriers to successfully completing the project.

It’s also important to spend a lot of time discussing the project as it moves along, and to have the skills to integrate information from a broad range of sources to come up with creative solutions for complex issues. We always like to develop a range of options for solutions, as we find that we learn a lot and increase our understanding of the situation, as we discuss and analyze potential options.

The final factor in developing creative solutions for complex problems seems to be an ability to feel comfortable in taking risks when proposing solutions, while at the same time, keeping your common sense about costs and barriers to effectively making the proposed solutions work in the long-term.

The Beach House on Hatfield Road

pink snow!	January 2002

Tons of Blueberries in 2003!

Those of you who know me personally or professionally know that I have a deep attachment to my blueberry fields in Yorke Settlement, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. Wild blueberries are generally on a two-year cycle, and this year was my year for a crop.

A couple of years ago, I decided to work with Stephen Erb for the management and harvesting of my berries. Stephen is associated with Oxford Frozen Foods and this crop was a big success. Brian Varner harvested over 28,000 pounds of berries from my few acres. It was a great experience to have such a good crop and a lot of fun. The wonderful part was that everyone’s crop was good — which is fantastic for the local economy and for people’s confidence in the industry.

If you’re planning to be in the Maritimes in August 2005, and want to do some handpicking in August, get in touch with me and we’ll set up a time to pick. Berry picking is always a nice change from the rigours of planning, managing and delivering health and human services.

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Contact us:

Liz Yorke and Associates
96 Sherwood Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M4P 2A7

Tel: 416-481-4096
Fax: 416-487-4048

lizyorke@interlog.com
www.lizyorke.com