Strategic Plan
ARCH Strategic Plan 2024-2029
Strategic Planning Committee: Jason Mitschele, Ellen Cohen, Dolly Menna-Dack, Gabriel Reznick, Doreen Way, and Robert Lattanzio
In Consultation with Calibrate
Vision
A society in which laws, policies and legal systems ensure full participation, inclusion, dignity, and equal rights without discrimination for persons with disabilities.
Mission Statement
ARCH Disability Law Centre, as a specialty legal clinic with a provincial mandate, undertakes to achieve this Vision by:
- Advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities, including the removal of systemic barriers;
- Promoting awareness and providing education on the rights of persons with disabilities;
- Addressing issues that have a particular impact on low income persons with disabilities;
- Ensuring that ARCH’s work has Ontario-wide impact;
- Engaging in national disability rights work and influencing the realization of international disability rights norms in Canada and Ontario;
- Continuously developing and utilizing ARCH’s expertise in local, provincial, national and international law as it affects persons with disabilities;
- Addressing the heightened disadvantage and discrimination faced by persons with disabilities, including as a result of other intersecting grounds of discrimination, including gender, race, age, language, place of origin, economic status, sexual orientation, and others.
Values and Principles
ARCH is guided by the following set of core values:
- The dignity and worth of all persons with disabilities must be respected;
- Persons with disabilities have the right to dignity, equality, self-determination, disability-related supports and full participation in a barrier-free inclusive society;
- Persons with disabilities themselves are in the best position to determine their own priorities;
- All persons have a common responsibility to create inclusive communities accessible to all persons with disabilities.
Additionally, ARCH is guided by the following set of core organizational principles:
- ARCH operates in accordance with the above core values;
- ARCH is a community-based organization, governed by a Board of Directors composed of a majority of persons with disabilities;
- ARCH is accountable to persons with disabilities in Ontario, its members and its funders.
Strategic Objectives
During the Strategic Planning day, Staff and Board members identified 4 strategic objectives that will guide ARCH’s work over the next five years. These strategic objectives are presented below in no particular order.
Strategic Objective 1
To maximize ARCH’s internal capacity to delivery core services to its communities.
Impact
ARCH will continue to be the preferred resource for clients and an employer of choice.
Goals
1 – Identify and address inefficiencies and organizational needs in a post-pandemic and hybrid work model context, while building and revitalizing internal relationships and team cohesion impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2 – Continue to address staff compensation, staff retention and staff wellness, and develop strategies that address board member recruitment, retention, and overlapping terms to better facilitate knowledge exchange and institutional memory.
3 – Develop metrics and improve data analysis for progress tracking, and develop and implement innovative strategies for delivering resources and information in clear and accessible language to persons with disabilities, and to the legal profession, on complex and emerging issues related to disability rights.
Strategic Objective 2
To grow ARCH’s ability to support persons with disabilities through systemic actions by expanding its strategic test case litigation and targeted law reform activities with the goal of further advancing the rights of persons with disabilities.
Impact
ARCH’s systemic litigation and advocacy will have an increased impact for persons with disabilities and disability rights communities.
Goals
1 – Identify new and innovative methods of assessing needs and intersectional mapping of the experiences of persons with disabilities to ensure that its core services and their scope are continually responsive. Allocate resources to increase the impact of its systemic test case litigation within the core areas of its practice, as a Legal Aid Ontario designated test case legal clinic.
2 – Continue to be responsive to issues of greatest concern to disability communities, from a cross-disability perspective, from intersectional identities, and in under-represented communities.
Strategic Objective 3
ARCH will increase its impact while not interrupting its core services.
Impact
ARCH maximizes its impact shaping positive legislative, policy and jurisprudential changes by proactively focusing its available resources.
Goals
1 – Complete a scan of funding options available outside of ARCH’s traditional funding modalities, including opportunities from the network of supporters/donors and the private sector.
2 – Develop and implement a funding strategy to achieve diverse, stable funding outside of ARCH’s traditional funding modalities to expand its activities.
3 – Develop and implement the plan to structure its national work to address internal capacity, decision-making, community involvement, and outreach strategies.
Strategic Objective 4
To enhance relationships and outreach activities with disability communities and allies.
Impact
ARCH’s work is informed by its relationships with the disability communities it serves in fulfilling its mission, vision and values in response to those communities’ needs.
Goals
1 – Build and revitalize external relationships that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2 – Build and sustain relationships with community and legal partners across Ontario and Canada to advance disability rights.
3 – Continue outreach initiatives to Indigenous, racialized, Francophone, rural, isolated and vulnerable disability communities.
Evaluation and Monitoring
Implementation plans and evaluation metrics will be developed to monitor the operationalization of this Strategic Plan and will be reviewed on an annual basis by the ARCH Board and Staff.