Phase 2: Town of Stratford, CT Vignette
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Visioning The Town of Stratford has 49,389 residents and is located in the southwestern corner of Connecticut, near Bridgeport. The Town of Stratford conducted visioning activities as part of its community planning process. Visioning helped Stratford residents break down barriers by identifying and engaging in a shared "dream" of the future. This shared vision provided a framework from which goals, objectives, and strategies were developed. The visioning process was also instrumental in developing an educated and committed constituency for public health.The Stratford Advisory Council includes 25 members from various organizations and sectors throughout the community and reflects differences in age, neighborhoods, racial and ethnic groups, and gender. The Advisory Council conducted a visioning process that spanned several months and used both small focus group and large group processes. During the first visioning session, members brainstormed questions such as, "What does a healthy community look like?" and "Picture a healthy community… What do you see?" Participants were asked to narrow the discussion to issues that affect community health. The health director and the Council's Executive Committee then developed the comments from the brainstorming discussion into twelve common themes. The next meeting was kicked off by a values clarification exercise. Participants rated eight values, such as peace, beauty, etc. The opening exercise encouraged the group to think about values that, in this case, did not necessarily relate to public health. Following the exercise, the health director presented the draft vision themes and discussed in more detail the purpose of a vision. The council members then broke into small groups. Each group reviewed two themes and prepared a statement of a few sentences for each theme. All statements were to begin with "A Stratford where…" The statements from this meeting were collected and consolidated into one vision statement. The statements were grouped for similarity and the most poetic wording was chosen. The vision statement was then reviewed, refined, and approved by the health director, Executive Committee, and the Advisory Council. (See attached for Vision Statement.) After development of the vision statement, the Health Advisory Council concentrated on disseminating the statement and involving the community. The vision statement was read aloud at a town council meeting, at which the media were present. The vision statement also took various printed forms. It was included in a one-page, two-sided document that described the Advisory Council and its mission. It was also included in a booklet prepared for a community event. The Stratford Vision Statement defines health for this community in its own language. It provided a map to where the community would like to be in the future as well as a focus for the planning process. The visioning process also was an effective method for breaking down barriers among members of the council and creating a cohesive group. The high participation in the process, both among the council members and the broader community, attested to the success of the vision statement in initiating the process. |