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List of ServicesEvaluation Consultation and Coaching Social Artistry Strategies and Approaches for Community Builders and Change Agents Spirit in Action Series for Women and Other Social Entrepreneurs Evaluation Consultation and Coaching
TPI provides training and technical assistance for organizations, coalitions, or partnerships in the following areas of program development and evaluation:
Photo: facilitation on UNR Cooperative Extension's needs assessment process in Fallon, Nevada on aging issues, June, 2006. Social Artistry Strategies and Approaches for Community Builders and Change AgentsIn addition to program evaluation, Turning Point, Inc. has worked in partnership with a select set of organizations and collaboratives over the past few years facilitating the collaborative process, documenting partnership issues, and developing integrated service delivery models that reflect the membership and goals of individuals as well as the group. TPI works from a comprehensive framework described best as “Community Youth Development.” Undergirding this framework is the belief that a community’s health can be measured by the health of its children and youth. Youth and adults each contribute to the health of a community, and youth-adult partnerships are effective strategies for bringing about social change. As needed, training is provided to collaborations and organizations in specific areas that enhance their working environment and effectiveness in the community change process: team-building, coalition-building, communications training, service-learning, asset development, alternative assessment strategies, volunteer recruitment and management, family empowerment, integrated service delivery, and facilitation of collaborations are a sample of the training provided by Turning Point's team of trainers. Other examples include:
Photo: facilitation on UNR Cooperative Extension's needs assessment process in Fallon, Nevada on aging issues, June, 2006. Social Artistry Strategies and Approaches for Community Builders and Change AgentsIn addition to program evaluation, Turning Point, Inc. has worked in partnership with a select set of organizations and collaboratives over the past few years facilitating the collaborative process, documenting partnership issues, and developing integrated service delivery models that reflect the membership and goals of individuals as well as the group. TPI works from a comprehensive framework described best as “Community Youth Development.” Undergirding this framework is the belief that a community’s health can be measured by the health of its children and youth. Youth and adults each contribute to the health of a community, and youth-adult partnerships are effective strategies for bringing about social change. As needed, training is provided to collaborations and organizations in specific areas that enhance their working environment and effectiveness in the community change process: team-building, coalition-building, communications training, service-learning, asset development, alternative assessment strategies, volunteer recruitment and management, family empowerment, integrated service delivery, and facilitation of collaborations are a sample of the training provided by Turning Point's team of trainers. Other examples include:
Spirit in Action Series for Women and Other Social EntrepreneursFor women entrepreneurs and/or activists wanting to prosper—personally, politically, and professionally. This series represents the cycle of engagement and entrepreneurship experienced in the birth, development, and maintenance of Turning Point, Inc. The series involves personal coaching and self-development in conjunction with sessions with Deborah Loesch-Griffin, president and founder of Turning Point, Inc. The cycle is also offered as a workshop series to groups of 8-10 women or entrepreneurs wanting to build and provide a network of colleagues and mentor-guides and work through the cycle experientially, together, while putting to practice some of the fundamental tenets of “Spirit in Action.”
There are five recurring, cyclical elements of the spirit in action cycle, which I have named after much personal and professional growth and retrospective analysis of the process that guided and supported my success as both a business woman and community builder: Meditation, Action, Reflection, Tithing, and Communion. Image: oil on canvas by Denise Sins. Creating Cross-Cultural and International ExperiencesDeborah Loesch-Griffin, along with her sons, Nevada and Cody Griffin, and her soul daughter, Alix Cirac, founded the Global Voice Project, a program offered through Community Chest, Inc., when they returned from their six-month world tour in 2002, during which they had made strong connections with youth in Northern Ireland. Deborah serves as a business sponsor for this project as well as directly coordinates and participates in the exchange program. Deborah is interested in supporting other organizations and communities who wish to bring the world to their doorstep through intentional exchanges that support youth as citizens and contributing members of their community and world. What is the Global Voice Project about? Creating "a world that works for all." An international youth exchange network whose purpose is to help youth raise their personal and political awareness and create local and global change through leadership and service. Northern Nevada youth have completed an international exchange with youth from Northern Ireland and are continuing to learn what is happening globally instead of just in our homeland. In January, 2006 Global Voice hosted its second international youth exchange. A group of Storey County youth, college students, and adults traveled to Escuinapa, Mexico for two weeks to work in a low-income, rural middle school. Their efforts involved the rebuilding of a library, classification of more than 3,000 books, and sponsorship of two clinics.
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www.turningpointnevada.com |
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P.O. Box 1028 Virginia City, Nevada 89440 775.847.7814 (office/fax) 775.843.2275 (cell) trnpt@aol.com |
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Turning
Point, Inc. specializes in "partnership evaluation" which
represents an approach where the process of inquiry is as critical, if
not more
so, than the product. The process of a partnership evaluation is an empowerment
process in which participants “join” the evaluation team
to define the questions, receive informal and formal feedback, and make
decisions about program processes and directions based on an exchange
of information between the evaluators and the program staff. The process
of the evaluation mirrors the purposes of the program; evaluators are
respectful of the participants and their values as well as their needs
for specific information. In some instances, participants are involved
in data collection in an effort to be less intrusive into the implementation
process. In other cases, instrumentation is developed in conjunction
with the participants and staff to serve both the purposes of program
documentation and planning as well as evaluation goals. Unlike more traditional
research and evaluation designs, Turning Point, Inc.'s evaluation
designs are more evolutionary in nature-- methodology and questions emerge
as
program processes evolve and as preliminary findings reveal new directions
and program impacts not identified at the outset of the process. Turning
Point, Inc. and the team of evaluators and consultants that
work under this paradigm are committed to evaluations that are dynamic,
empowering,
and participatory.
This
series is designed to support individuals who are beginning, developing,
or sustaining their own lifework through civic or professional practice
as independent agents of change, as entrepreneurs. The series is not
intended to provide the nuts and bolts of business development as these
are better served through experts in accounting, business law and practice,
etc. Rather, this series provides a framework for thinking about the
service or product you wish to integrate into your lifework and your
business enterprise and outlines a process for serving your ideals,
your clients or customers, and the community in which you have the opportunity
to operate as a free agent. 
Turning
Point, Inc. has worked with the