Our MCH Advocacy Fellows played a big role in the conference this year, and we have a reflection piece for you. This week Claudette McDowall will share her conference highlights and experiences with you. Please enjoy this hot off-the-press piece!
👋 Hello advocates! I’m Claudette McDowall, an Administrative Fellow with the MCH Advocacy Fellowship program.
This year’s Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless (MCH) conference marked my third time attending, starting back when I was in the Regional Experts Network (REN). Attending conferences takes a lot of effort and time, and doing so shows your peers and managers that you truly care about what you do.
I had a lot of highlights from the conference this year. I enjoyed getting to know the winners and hearing their stories which were selected from the different categories and was very excited to be a part of this year’s planning of the conference. I learned to collaborate, plan, and organize an event which was very helpful for future events.Â
I got a chance to meet with different people with various roles in the state or local offices. These Conferences provide an unparalleled opportunity for me to meet influential and inspirational people that I might get a chance to connect with in the future. Also, you’ll get to network with many people who you might not normally get to meet, such as experts, peers from other sectors, and colleagues from other organizations.
🌟 My big takeaways from the conference:
- Conferences showcase what’s new and changing in the industry, and attending them will enable you to stay informed about the latest news.
- The conference will bring together service providers, system leaders, advocates, and people with lived experiences of homelessness to learn from each other, discuss best practices, and share innovations in the field.
- Through direct-service roles such as street outreach workers, case managers, and housing navigators, social workers within the homeless response system will equip individuals with the tools and resources needed to rebuild their lives. Further, through systems-level or macro work, social workers confront policies that exacerbate homelessness, analyze and address system improvement, and lead initiatives and programs that create equitable housing and homelessness interventions.Â
Individuals and professionals are often drawn to the profession because of their lived experience overcoming adversity. I would invite a friend or a family member to a future conference because the event is very informative and you get a chance to network a lot.
I love learning and the #MCHCONF was a great place to learn and network. I also learned a lot from the conference and I have expanded my knowledge, and usually, conferences enable me to learn new ideas and gain a lot more insights from the people you network with or the presentations you attend. Don’t forget to check out my reflection blog from the #MCHCONF here.
— Claudette and the rest of the team at MCH
🌟 PS: Find the Listening Sessions Outcomes
This year at the MCH Annual Conference we held Listening Sessions that will help shape our future policy priorities. We found that the facilitated conversations were inclusive, impactful, and important, and you can find the full recap here.