How we work
At centrepoint, we believe people make better decisions when they understand more of the system they are part of.
That means listening to different experiences.
It also means paying attention to power, access and the barriers that can determine who gets heard, who gets opportunities and who benefits.
We are still learning. We do not claim expertise or lived experience we do not have.
These commitments describe how we try to work.
Look beyond
the usual voices.
We ask who is involved, who is affected and whose perspective may be missing. We do not assume that the people easiest to reach are the only people we need to hear from.
Pay attention to power
People do not enter every conversation with the same authority or freedom to speak. We design our work with that in mind and create different ways for people to contribute honestly.
Challenge racism, discrimination
and systemic barriers.
We take racism and discrimination extremely seriously, including the ways they can become embedded in familiar processes, assumptions and institutions.
We challenge discriminatory behaviour in the work we lead. We also ask harder questions about systems:
Who has access
Who carries the burden
Whose experience is treated as the norm
Who benefits from the decisions being made
Do not speak for people
Different communities have different histories, relationships and experiences. We do not assume that we understand those experiences simply because we have consulted someone from a particular community.
Where knowledge or expertise is needed that we do not have, we say so and seek the right guidance.
Make participation possible
We ask what people need in order to participate and adapt our approach where we reasonably can.
That can mean changing formats, providing material in advance, offering different ways to contribute or making the language we use clearer and more accessible.
Work across languages and cultures
We work in French and English and understand that translation alone does not create understanding. We listen for differences in context, culture and experience and ask rather than assume.
Test who Benefits
Equity is relevant to the decisions themselves, not only to who participates in making them.
In our strategy and organizational work we ask who will benefit from a decision, who may face new barriers, what unintended consequences may follow and what can be changed in the design.
Take responsibility
We welcome challenge and feedback. We question our own assumptions. And when something in our approach is not working, we take responsibility for changing it.
Everyone has something to contribute.
Our job is to build the conditions in which more of that contribution can be seen, heard and turned into action.
