CAN Initiatives

• Enhance awareness of community issues related to CAN's vision of a community of equity & opportunity.
• Promote opportunities to work across jurisdictions to move toward a common vision and to move the Community Dashboard indicators in the right direction.
• Enhance awareness of existing commitments and efforts to move indicators in the right direction.

• CAN will release its fourth annual Community Dashboard Report and update the on-line dashboard and drill-downs.
• The Dashboard Steering Committee (DSC) will continue reviewing the Community Dashboard report and drill-downs, recommending changes to the CAN Board as appropriate.
• CAN Partners will share the CAN Dashboard, Strategic Framework, and Video produced by KLRU within their organizations and with their constituencies and the public at large.

Deliverables: 2013 Dashboard report and updated drill-downs.

CAN will continue implementation of its communications plan and make more people in the community aware of the CAN websites, CANews e-mail newsletters, twitter, and other social media tools.

Deliverable: Increase in reach through social media tools.

The CAN Dashboard currently includes 16 indicators which provide population-based accountability by measuring community conditions. Performance measures help assess how well our current service systems are working to move community indicators in the right direction.

CAN will conduct an analysis of performance measures to include:

1. an inventory of performance measures currently being used in our community,
2. a review of prioritized performance measures across the country, &
3. recommendations for performance measures that may be the most critical to diagnosing how our current service systems are working.

Deliverables: Analysis and report.

The CAN Community Council will review the "turning the curve" ections of the Dashboard, consider whether current efforts are sufficient or whether additional focus or action is needed, and report to Board.

Deliverables: Monthly forums and identification of areas needing further attention and action.

Convene 2013 CAN-a-Palooza and report on community efforts to follow-up on challenges and opportunities to overcome barriers identified in the 2012 CAN Policy Palooza.

Deliverables: 2013 CAN-a-Palooza and next steps for making progress.

• Promote civic engagement
• Promote cultural competency, diversity, inclusion
• Enhance awareness of how to recognize & address systemic disproportionality

On-line Community Action Center

Leadership Austin Essential Class, in collaboration with DSC members and CAN staff, will create an on-line civic engagement tool that will identify what people can do to move indicators in the right direction where they live, learn, work, and serve.

Deliverable: on-line civic engagement tool

Cultural Competency, Diversity, and Inclusion Leadership Meeting & On-line Toolkit

CAN will convene a Cultural Competency, Diversity & Inclusion Work Group that will 1) coordinate (and follow up on) a Special Leadership Meeting of the CAN Board to discuss how partners are working to promote values of cultural competency, diversity, and inclusion in their organizations and 2) identify training opportunities and resources for an on-line toolkit that can be used to operationalize values. Disproportionality training would be incorporated into training options.

Deliverables: Special Leadership Meeting, on-line toolkit of resources

• Enhance awareness of issues related to conflict between economic prosperity and sustainable growth
• Promote connected, affordable Complete Communities
• Assess the community's safety net for health and human services
• Support coordinated services for veterans in our community

CAN Board will coordinate a dialogue on core issues related to the conflict between economic prosperity and sustainable growth.

Deliverable: Board dialogue

The CAN Board will monitor and receive updates on place-based planning efforts (e.g. Imagine Austin, Choice Neighborhoods, others), ensure partner organizations are appropriately engaged, and consider how planning for the built environment and active transportation (community design, housing, service facility siting, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure ) can further social, health, educational, and economic goals identified through community planning efforts (e.g. CHA/CHIP). CAN will convene one or more work groups to review and enhance its existing inventory of plans, identify opportunities to connect and align place-based planning concepts and efforts, identify gaps and opportunities for collaboration, and ensure the needs of disadvantaged populations are addressed.

Deliverable: Inventory and recommendations.

• CAN, together with One Voice Central Texas and United Way 2-1-1, will convene a Safety Net Work Group comprised of Issue Area Group leaders and other key stakeholders from the five-county area to evaluate the "state of our community’s safety net" and report findings to the CAN Board. This will include identifying how the Austin metro area may better address these issues through partners’ planning efforts.
  Deliverable: Analysis and recommendations for enhancing the safety net.
   
• CAN will work with the Military Veterans Peer Network to assess the capacity of community resources to meet the needs of veterans in the Austin/Travis County and the 5-county area. Information gained will inform development of Community Blueprint initiatives.
  Deliverable: Analysis of available resources and areas needing improvement.

• Promote integration of behavioral health services into healthcare continuum of care that is person-centered and recovery-oriented

Convene behavioral health leaders to develop guiding principles for working together to better integrate substance abuse and mental health services into healthcare continuum; connect and align planning efforts, maximize funding opportunities, and re-engage community.

Deliverables: Guiding Principles and Recommendations.

• Work toward seamless alignment between secondary/post secondary education and workforce/economic development

Facilitate dialogue on how to better align education and workforce development so that we can grow our own globally competitive workforce and not rely on importing middle skilled workers from outside the community.

Deliverables: Recommendations.