Friday, May 9th, 2025
9:30am - 10:45am
Room 603
Concurrent Session:
Model Coherency Evaluation: Looking Inward, Building Upward
Model Coherency Evaluation: Looking Inward, Building Upward
In the autumn of 2023, Extend-A-Family made the decision to be one of the first organizations in Canada to undergo a Model Coherency Evaluation. A team of nine experts conducted the review in the spring of 2024 and delivered an 80-page report in late summer. Since that time, our twelve staff and seven board members have been reading, reflecting and discussing the report’s findings, identification of assumptions, and list of recommendations. This presentation will offer a peek into our experience as an organization that has existed for fifty years, stopping to look deeply and honestly inward for the first time. We looked as deeply as we could to the core of what we do and looked back as far as speaking with the organization’s founders. I will talk about the process prior to and during the evaluation, the experience of receiving the report, and the benefits and challenges of this evaluation approach. Finally, I will present how we are using the outcomes to shape our way forward.
Presenter
Meredith Cochrane
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Meredith Cochrane has 25 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector in the UK and Canada with 18 years as an Executive Director. She has worked at not-for-profits focusing on issues including global justice, environment, mental health and disability. The common thread through them is self-empowerment through knowledge, relationships, community, and most importantly, a strengths based approach. She has a strong track record of building strong, stable organizations that are collaborative in their approach and transformative in their impact. Since 2022, Meredith has been the Executive Director at Extend-A-Family (Toronto) and works in partnership with young people with developmental disabilities and their families to help young people establish socially valued roles and meaningful lives. ​