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CentrePiece: Message from the CAO

December 9, 2009

The “key ingredients for success” for continuing education

As CAO of The Centre for Skills Development & Training, it is my pleasure to be a member of CESBA, the Ontario Association for Continuing Education School Board Administrators, and to be involved in many CESBA initiatives.

CESBA is the voice of continuing education for school boards in Ontario. Every year, they hold two conferences, allowing members to network, learn from each other and discuss issues related to adult and continuing education. The first conference takes place in late spring, and the second in late fall/early winter. Each conference runs for two days, and features a pre-conference day that focuses on specific program areas.

On December 2, I facilitated a pre-conference workshop on “Business Models that Work” for the fall conference. The 30 or so CESBA members there represented administrators and staff from continuing education boards across the province. Staff from the Ontario Ministries of Education and Citizenship & Immigration were also in attendance. They were a diverse group, but everyone was looking for the “key ingredients for success” for their adult and continuing education (ACE) organizations.

Over the course of the day-long conference, I spoke about the unique business model of The Centre for Skills Development & Training. My goal was not to say that The Centre’s model is the one everyone should be using, but rather to showcase some of The Centre’s successes and share some of our “lessons-learned” and “test practices.”

Wayne Joudrie, Director if Education with the Halton District School Board and The Centre’s President, asked workshop attendees to map out where they were in terms of five key components of the ACE model (program, budget, staffing, facilities, and time), and where they want to be in the future. His presentation helped the attendees visualize how they could get there from here.

For The Centre, our interdependent relationship with the school board is key to the success of our business model in all five key components. But not every school board can set up the same model. What works for them will depend on their priorities, their relationships, their strategic plan and their community. According to Wayne, “It doesn’t have to be a headache.” But it does take some work. For us at The Centre, it’s all about using the four pillars of success to prop up our excellent programs and services. Those four pillars are: governance, organizational chart, infrastructure (which includes IT, communications, finance and HR), and business planning.

Throughout the workshop, we all had the chance to engage in group discussion about how each board approaches these four pillars, and how they could successfully bridge the business model with educational outcomes. Feedback from attendees continues to be positive, and I look forward to more opportunities to share The Centre’s model with other boards across Ontario.

At the conference, I also facilitated a networking session for the Employment and Skills Development Committee that I chair at CESBA. One current topic of discussion is “where are things at with Employment Ontario?” Members swapped stories about how the government’s delays with implementation of the new Employment Services Delivery Model are affecting service in their communities.

At a Partnership Panel, I had an opportunity to speak to The Centre’s philosophy of service and provide some pointers for how to develop sound partnerships.

Finally, at a session entitled “Employment Ontario – Hitting the Bricks” I took delegates through an exercise of looking at their organizations and communities through alien eyes as ask the question “Why do we do it this way?” and what can we do differently if we are moving to a more coordinated and integrated service delivery model.

Kathy Mills