Last December Ivy Panlilio, Interim Executive Director and Katie Tyler, Clinical Director, attended The Strong Field Leadership Project to End Domestic Violence (SLP). It was Ivy’s closing session of an eighteen-month project and Katie’s kickoff retreat to start her eighteen-month journey. SLP has brought valuable change to Haven Hills and the improvements continue.
The program emphasizes shared leadership and teaches skills to engage all employees and create a larger impact. Research shows that the techniques taught through the program result in a significant decrease in turnover and improve organizational culture. Turnover is one of the highest costs a company has to mitigate and a decrease in turnover saves valuable time and expense.
The project has also provided organization wide trainings that benefit all the staff. These trainings help to integrate a strengths based approach. Research reveals that it’s a much more productive use of time to build on the strengths that we have rather than focusing solely on weaknesses. Each staff member was able to take a strength finder assessment test to identify their top five strengths. The tests revealed that we have many valuable strengths within our organization including, empathy, connection, strategic, achiever and learner. Helping staff to understand individual strengths contributes to an increase in staff self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
With Katie accepted into the program and starting the eighteen-months, Haven Hills will continue to receive funding for organizational improvements. The program is competitive and Ivy and Katie’s back to back acceptance allows them to integrate a full three years of learning and trainings into the Haven Hills culture. They plan to join forces and integrate all the cutting edge knowledge about domestic violence into the Haven Hills programs.
