HUMBOLDT — An online survey will determine how a local social services organization will develop over the next couple of years and how it will go after funding.
Partners Family Services provides services like counselling, crisis intervention and family support programs.
Their needs assessment survey was released Jan. 29 and will remain open until Feb. 28. The last time they did the assessment was in 2016.
Hayley Kennedy, Partners’ executive director, said the 2016 survey was critical for the organization to secure more federal funding.
“They want to know what is the community feels, not just in our organization’s opinion,” she said. “When the community offers that feedback, then we get more people who are willing to listen.”
The survey gathers feedback on what Partners does now, as well as asks the community what they think is missing and what they’d like to see in Humboldt in the future when it comes to social services.
Some feedback from the 2016 survey had respondents say they wanted Partners’ programs staffed with qualified social workers – something that’s now a requirement, and a child counseling program – which is now a permanent service. The survey also said the community thought violence was a problem, so Partners was also to secure another $200,000 in permanent funding for a children exposed to violence program.
“Now we're ready to do it again and say: what have we done well over the last couple of years, what do we need, what could we do better, and what are we missing?” Kennedy said.
The survey asked what programs the respondent associates with Partners, if the staff values confidentiality and are easy to work with, if they feel the organization is delivering its mandate, how they are serving the needs of the community and what do they feel are gaps in services.
“We really do take the feedback that we get on it and do something with it,” Kennedy said. “It's actually really important to our organization.”
The survey can be done anonymously or an email can be attached if the respondent wants a response from Partners
“Once the results are tallied in the first week of March, we post the results to our website,” Kennedy said.
The survey can be found on the organization's website or Facebook page.
