Middle Leaders implementing their mini-projects
We are grateful to the 2024 Cohorts of Middle Leaders for sharing details of their mini-projects with us in recent editions of Connections. This month we thank David Maloney and Kristy Carrington from MacKillop Family Services for their contributions.
A Call to Lead – Kristi Carrington – Cohort 1, 2024
A Call to lead is a reflective workshop with senior practitioners, team leaders and practice leaders from MacKillop Family Services, working in the Orange Door service.
Why I chose the project: The Orange Door can be a challenging space to work due to the Matrix management framework. This means that practitioners are in integrated teams with two other partner agencies. It also means that our team leaders have teams or practitioners that include practitioners from our two other partner agencies.
My leaders are made up of those who have a strong sense of social justice and want to support the vulnerable people/ families of our communities to increase their safety and stability. Their hearts are in the right place, but the complexity of the environment in which they work, can sometimes take the focus away from why they chose to work in this area.
My project was to create an opportunity for leaders to reflect on why they chose to do this work, to take some time out to reflect on their leadership style, and identify some goals which they would focus on for the next six months.
The content of the workshop: Following an Acknowledgement of Country, I asked participants to contribute to a mentimeter word cloud for why they chose to work in the Orange Door and for MacKillop Family Services.
The next part of the workshop focused on world views. Worldviews have a relationship to other important constructs, such as beliefs and values. Your beliefs and values drive your attitudes, behaviours and decisions. As you grow and learn you take on the values and beliefs of those around you – parents, teachers, friends, colleagues. Prior to the workshop I sent two links to questionnaires on World Views and the Human Values test for participants to complete, as a talking point. The outcome of the questionnaires was not important for me, it was the discussions and reflections that they generated that I was most interested in.
I showed participants a video of Catherine McAuley (from the Middle Leaders Conference) and a short video of Mary MacKillop. I found viewing the video of Catherine McAuley a profound experience while at the Middle Leaders course. The work that Catherine set out to achieve as a lay person had come full circle and the inspirational work that had followed what Catherine had started so many years ago, was once again being handed back to lay people such as the social workers at the workshop. I wanted to tie this back to MacKillop’s values and the Sanctuary framework that underpins the way we work together at MacKillop.
The final part of the workshop was the reflection and goals setting component. I was very taken by the Mercy Leadership Reflection checklist in the ‘Be as Shinning Lamps’ book which I received at the Middle Leaders course. I created some cards for the reflection; on one side I had different images of lamps with the sections of the checklist and on the back side I had the description and questions from the checklist.
I laid the cards out on the table (four types of each card) and asked participants to pick one or two cards that resonated with them or that stirred something in them, reflect on our Sanctuary principles and identify one or two goals that they will focus on for the next six months in relation to their leadership.
I also provided a workshop participant workbook with information and links to the videos, where participants could fill in their results from the questionnaires, and write up their goals.
Outcomes: A participant of the workshop said they found the workshop very effective in getting in touch with their “why” and reflecting on the leader that they wanted to be. They said that the reflection was very helpful as it is easy to get caught up in each day and each week and run through the motions, which can have you reacting to incidents or behaviours rather than responding in a more thoughtful way.
Benefits to my Ministry: Working at the frontline, in an intake service for vulnerable families and individuals, practitioners are dealing with crisis and trauma every day. It is imperative that we work with thoughtful intention and remember why we chose this work in the first place.
For further information please contact Kristi Carrington, kris.carrington@mackillop.org.au Manager Child Family and Community for Mackillop Family Services in Western Melbourne.
