Mission 16W

As I write this, pretty much everybody in my neck of the woods is talking about Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos’ amazing playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But I have been thinking lately about playoffs and championships in another sport – hockey. Specifically, I have been thinking about the Colorado Avalanche and that team’s 2001 Stanley Cup playoff run. During training camp at the beginning of that season, Avalanche veteran Ray Bourque posted the motto “Mission 16W” in the locker room and elsewhere to keep the team focused on the need to win 16 playoff games to reach the goal of hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Now while that concept seems simple, keep in mind that this was a team loaded with superstars: in addition to Bourque, the Avalanche roster included Joe Sakic, Rob Blake, Patrick Roy, and Peter Forsberg, to name just a few. The talent level was extraordinary, but with a group like that, egos and petty concerns could have gotten in the way if the team wasn’t able to focus on the bigger goal of winning a championship. The “Mission 16W” motto kept that primary goal front and center, and the result was a second Stanley Cup for the Avs.

Longtime readers of my blog know that a common theme running through my posts is the importance of coming together as a team by focusing on the big picture of what can we do to achieve the best possible outcomes for the individuals we serve.

Today, I’d like to highlight two recent achievements that demonstrate that the community of those who provide supports to individuals with one or more developmental disabilities in Colorado have truly come together as a team.

Example 1:

I wrote a couple of weeks back about Alliance’s Focus on the Future project, created to identify what is working and what is not working in the system, in the hope that the decisions made about changing the system moving forward will be made with knowledge of what is best for the end users in the system (the people we serve).

Last week, Alliance presented the Focus on the Future project to Colorado’s State Long Term Care Advisory Committee, and I had the honor of presenting it to the Legislative Joint Budget Committee. Also presenting were Carol Meredith, Executive Director of The Arc Arapahoe and Douglas Counties, Sally Montgomery, Executive Director of Mosaic in Northern Colorado, and Marijo Rymer, Executive Director of The Arc of Colorado.

This cross section of speakers from Community Centered Boards, from the advocate community, and from the provider community shows how well the Focus on the Future project represents ideas from a wide ranging group of stakeholders from across the state. And every presenter (including myself) commented while presenting on how proud we were to be associated with the project.

If you are interested, you can find a copy of the Focus on the Future final report by clicking here.

 

And, you can make your voice heard regarding the project. Take a survey about the project by clicking here.

 

Example 2:

For the past several years, there have been two state-wide organizations representing the Community Centered Board and provider community in Colorado – CCB Partners and Alliance. I won’t go into reasons why there were two such organizations, the reasons don’t really matter.

What did matter was that the two organizations, though they served the same populations, spoke with two different voices and made the system seemed fractured and fragmented to outside observers.

Just last week, leadership and Boards of Directors of both Alliance and CCB Partners announced the unification of the two organizations and their respective memberships into one, to be known as Alliance Colorado. Compelled by unity of purpose and vision, this historic action unites Colorado’s twenty Community Centered Boards (CCBs) in one organization in partnership with more than twenty provider agencies from throughout Colorado.

Culminating from nearly 18 months of close collaboration and with a view of what’s best for Coloradans with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), this reconciliation signals a powerful and common mission of all Colorado CCBs and provider agencies to provide exceptional community services for people with I/DD, where self-direction, active engagement in community life, and the pursuit of quality of life that is defined by the person and not the system, are minimum expectations for every person with an IDD. The organizations that comprise Alliance Colorado are already working tirelessly in the service of that mission, unified in the belief that together we are better.

Both of these examples demonstrate the power of coming together as a team. We are much stronger when standing together, and considering the many issues and challenges currently facing the system of funding and delivering services to some of our most vulnerable citizens, the timing couldn’t be better.

I think we might finally have our own version of “Mission 16W” in sight. It is a very fine sight, indeed.

Then again, what do I know?