Building a Community
Develop trusting relationship:
The basic component of a connection with the community is trusting relationships — relationships where there is mutual caring, trust, and respect between the parties. This is the heart of teacher-student, teacher-family, and teacher-community relationships. While this sounds simple, it is often overlooked as the first step in creating support for children with FASD.
Believe in the capacity to change:
Teachers and the community must find a way to do things differently in order to meet the needs of children with FASD. In order for this change to occur, everyone involved must share a fundamental belief that the community and its members have the capacity to change.
Recognize that change takes time:
The belief in a capacity to change must be tempered with an understanding that change takes time. Considered in the timeframe of a school year, change in a community seems to take forever. However, positive change cannot be rushed. It starts at the level of the individual and follows a cyclical process of assessment-reflection-creation. Positive change is more likely to happen through mutual learning and the recognition that no one person has all the answers.
Acknowledge that the community must drive change:
Change in a community must be driven by the community, and the school is part of that community. Community-driven change means teachers see themselves and community members as equal and active participants, rather than seeing themselves as providers of a service separate from the community. At times this is a difficult concept for those who were trained in a teacher-centred approach to education. In order to help, however, it is important to resist the temptation to tell people what they need to do.
-Adapted from All Together Now: Creating a Social Capital Mosaic. Francis Ricks (et al.). Vanier Institute of the Family, 1999.
The basic component of a connection with the community is trusting relationships — relationships where there is mutual caring, trust, and respect between the parties. This is the heart of teacher-student, teacher-family, and teacher-community relationships. While this sounds simple, it is often overlooked as the first step in creating support for children with FASD.
Believe in the capacity to change:
Teachers and the community must find a way to do things differently in order to meet the needs of children with FASD. In order for this change to occur, everyone involved must share a fundamental belief that the community and its members have the capacity to change.
Recognize that change takes time:
The belief in a capacity to change must be tempered with an understanding that change takes time. Considered in the timeframe of a school year, change in a community seems to take forever. However, positive change cannot be rushed. It starts at the level of the individual and follows a cyclical process of assessment-reflection-creation. Positive change is more likely to happen through mutual learning and the recognition that no one person has all the answers.
Acknowledge that the community must drive change:
Change in a community must be driven by the community, and the school is part of that community. Community-driven change means teachers see themselves and community members as equal and active participants, rather than seeing themselves as providers of a service separate from the community. At times this is a difficult concept for those who were trained in a teacher-centred approach to education. In order to help, however, it is important to resist the temptation to tell people what they need to do.
-Adapted from All Together Now: Creating a Social Capital Mosaic. Francis Ricks (et al.). Vanier Institute of the Family, 1999.