We have been moving towards a reporting framework around looking at how people change and how the types of programs, opportunities, and things that we offer have made a difference in their lives. That always starts with a strength-based approach. So when people walk in, we're not checking the boxes: this is how many alcoholics we have, how many criminals, and how many people who lost their kids to child welfare. We have boxes that say this is how many people are carpenters, this is how many work well with children, this is how many are a Mr. or Mrs. Fix-It, and this is how many play music.
So we're looking at the strengths, and that's one of the key shifts we've made from really a deficit-driven kind of reporting. We find that kind of reporting harder to do than the capacity-building, strength-based approach. Collecting that data, we value every person who comes in because they're a human being with something to offer, and as we value people with their strengths, they feel they have the confidence and the self-esteem to do that.
What we do is monitor the programs and services that they're accessing and their role in the community. While everybody does it, some people do it faster and some people take a little longer. We report on people's activities and how they end up being involved in the community, how they end up doing things for themselves to better their family, whether it's going back to school or whatnot, and we create those opportunities within the organization.
So when people come in, they volunteer for a bit, and then they work part-time for a bit, and then they're going back to school or they're working full-time. Our organization is made up of all those people who have come in at one point in time for service. So it's documenting those. For us, it's not how many alcoholics we served and who may have changed or not; it's how many people have come in, were honoured for who they were, the types of opportunities they accessed, and then how they gave back.