RECOVER

Communications Strategy, Website Development, Indigenous Framework

RECOVER is the City of Edmonton’s urban wellbeing initiative, designed to address the systemic challenges that are barriers to wellbeing. It recognizes that wellbeing is rooted in connection: to oneself, one’s community, one’s culture, the land, the sacred and the human project. When these connections flourish, whole communities are strengthened.

We collaborated with the RECOVER team, Shauna Young of ibis communications, and Jacquelyn and Hunter of Naheyawin, to develop a communications strategy for RECOVER that would harness the power of storytelling to communicate their important messages. We also developed a new, comprehensive website that shares their work with the world. Jacquelyn and Hunter developed an Indigenous Framework for how to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing and being, as well as Reconciliation actions, into the heart of RECOVER’s work.

RECOVER’s work is deeply thoughtful and introspective. It embraces the spirit of pluralism through collaboration and co-creation, intentionally decolonized work processes, and by honouring each voice at the table. While our expected deliverables were well within our wheelhouse, and were the kinds of things we’ve done many times before, we learned so much in the process of working with RECOVER, and the experience has changed and enriched the way we work going forward.

It started with the communications strategy process, which was very collaborative. Working closely with Shauna Young and the whole RECOVER team, there was an ongoing focus on open-hearted listening and a drive for equal engagement with every member of the team. When conflicting ideas were presented, there wasn’t necessarily a push for consensus, simply an acknowledgement that the ideas could coexist. The strategy that resulted from this process was actionable, and those actions were put into our hands to deliver upon.

The first step was to write and revamp their website. Working within tight timelines and a tighter budget, we were able to, again, collaborate fully with every member of the RECOVER team to co-create a living document that details their powerful work to date. We also supported the development of a number of blogs, each written by the RECOVER team about the aspects of their work that they find the most exciting, and the blogs, as a collection, reveal the deep engagement of this passionate team, and the good they’re putting out into the world. At the same time, we also rewrote and fleshed out RECOVER’s presence on the City of Edmonton website, updating the content and better communicating RECOVER’s story in the municipal context.

At the same time as Randy and Marliss were developing the new website, Jacquelyn and Hunter were just finishing up a groundbreaking Indigenous framework for how to engage and co-create with urban Indigenous Peoples through RECOVER, and also to encourage ‘Two-Eyed Seeing,’ incorporating both Western and Indigneous lenses into RECOVER’s work.

The framework was designed to answer the question: how can the City of Edmonton best support Indigenous Peoples living in an urban context? It leverages the City’s previous work as well as the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Calls for Justice from the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. More than 50 Indigenous-serving agencies, organizations, and governments were engaged, as well as many Indigenous individuals, through multiple community engagements over several years. This co-creative process resulted in a series of commitments and roles which organize and operationalize the work of improving relationships between Indigenous peoples and the City of Edmonton.

Upon completion of Parodos’ communications work with RECOVER, we received the following message from RECOVER’s Branch Manager, Susan Coward:

“We all appreciate your expertise and skills to get our new websites finished. I very much liked how open and helpful you both were as we figured out what content to include and how much content to include. I know you went above and beyond your contract, especially helping us learn how to keep the website current and getting our blogs finished and posted on the site.”

That message was followed up by Sue Holdsworth, RECOVER’s Project Manager:

“Thank you so much for all your work on our communications and the website! I am getting more people reaching out to me out of the blue, and I am sure that it is solely because of the new website.”