Chrysalis

Chrysalis is an Alberta society for citizens with disabilities that aims to improve the citizen’s quality of life. The society provides personalized services to empower individuals with disabilities to accomplish their employment, volunteer, and recreational goals.     With the goal of re-thinking how they deliver services, Chrysalis incorporated a Human Centered Design (HCD) model prototype into their service offering. The HCD approach features a problem-solving process in which Chrysalis clients and their social networks can collaborate with staff members to co-create solutions that are tailored to the client’s personal and unique needs and aspirations. In partnership with Chrysalis, W21C is leading a process-outcome evaluation focused on the HCD implementation. Chrysalis clients, their families, and Chrysalis staff and leadership, are participating in the research activities and providing their voices to impact the services they receive.   The results of the evaluation, led by Dr. Chad Saunders, PhD, associate professor, Haskayne School of Business and W21C affiliate, will examine if the use of the HCD model and its implementation improved Chrysalis’ overall service. This will help inform decision making within Chrysalis around program approaches and may be used to inform best practice moving forward for other organizations providing services to adults with disabilities.    

The final report was presented to the board at a meeting and the report was sent to the Chrysalis Board, staff members, and family of participants. With the delivered final report, W21C was able to provide Chrysalis with feedback on their implementation of HCD to further improve their service delivery in the future and increase awareness of HCD within the organization. The positive outcomes and impact of their HCD service delivery were also shared to showcase the positive impact the service delivery transition accomplished. 

W21C provided a multitude of services for Chrysalis as this project entailed developing the study based on a need identified by Chrysalis leadership. W21C conducted the study from start to finish and services included protocol and methods development and project management; as well as protocol execution including a rapid literature review, consolidation of existing data, conducting interviews with Chrysalis staff, clients, and client families, data analysis, and delivering a final report to the Chrysalis board and community overall. W21C also contributed to the preparation of a manuscript for publication, which is still under review.