It’s been another one of those weeks where before I knew it, it’s whizzed by and I have barely had a moment to reflect on what I actually accomplished this week. Some weeks when I reflect, I really have to work at staying positive, telling myself yet again that change comes from that series of daily baby steps, hardly ever one big giant leap. I sometimes think I need new glasses, with much higher magnification, to see the size of the step we have been able to take in a week. 
 
But this week was not like that. I am seeing potential for change in every direction and also the fruition of actions started months, if not years ago. I have a quote by my desk that says, “Chance favor the prepared mind, you show up, you keep working, and hopefully you catch a break.” This week has been an affirmation that Dean knows of what he speaks.
 
I am hard at work with colleagues at the Michigan Department of Community Health to complete the first step in Michigan’s three-step application to garner the newly available home visitation funds that are available to Michigan as a result of health care reform. 
 
One of the people at the table, Brenda Fink, and I have worked together off and on since 1987. My second job out of graduate school was working at the Human Services Department in Kalamazoo on a DD Council funded project to develop family-centered, community-based services for technology dependent and medical fragile children. Brenda was the Director of Children’s Services which brought together – Children’s Special Health Care Services, Services for Children with Emotional Disturbance and Developmental Disabilities and the project I worked on. Extremely revolutionary for the times. 
 
Brenda and I have been co-laboring – collaborating – for virtually my entire professional career. Our ability to listen, to share ideas and most importantly to trust that each one of us has the best interests of children and families in mind, is the foundation, long tended, for the critical conversations and decisions that we have to make to ensure that this home visitation investment changes the trajectory of children’s lives for the better.
 
At the table as well is Nancy Peeler, with whom I have had the privilege to co-create on many occasions both big and small.  She happens to be one of the smartest, most passionate people I have had the privilege to work with. One of the things I appreciate most about Nancy is that she is not afraid to go against the tide of thought or opinion; I don’t think you can have collaboration without a certain amount of fearlessness and a strong internal moral compass that means even when it’s not popular – you share the truth as you see it.
 
I couldn’t have know in 1987 that one Friday in 2010, I’d be noticing that young children in Michigan are catching a break because two people, dedicated to the practice of co-laboring, to what collaboration means not only in the head but also in heart, never stopped showing up, and kept on working, just in case chance ever brought such an opportunity.