I’m participating and investing in a dialogue between community organizations and our local school systems.

One of the starting points taken by the planning group for the round-table discussion is framing the purpose as an opportunity to “explore different conversations about our school – community relations”.

I am very pleased to see this initiative move forward as I believe the round-table discussion has great potential to engage community in a new way.

That said, I think that while it’s useful to talk about school – community relations, I am supporting the notion that our discussion includes a critical point, namely that our community is what is in trouble and at risk.

My view and starting point is that both the school and social service system live within the community. By framing the community as our primary discussion topic (or domain) I believe our process will be much more targeted on tapping in on our community’s strengths. We will also have an opportunity to support an engagement structure that has the potential of widening our circle of members.

In our round-table discussions, these 2 sectors can learn how to communicate and collaborate more effectively together, however I believe our time together would be more productive if we focused our discussions on how we as community members (not system or service representatives) can restore community.

I think it would be really exciting to promote the round-table discussions as an ongoing engagement process with constituents of schools and social service organizations. Those constituents being parents, everyday citizens, youth etc.

It’s difficult to get accurate data on early school leavers. That said, I’ve read that in some locals across Canada there are up to and sometimes over 50% youth leaving school before high school graduation. I see this as a significant indicator of our community at risk. Young people leaving school early do so for many reasons but one of them has to be the absence of a sense of belonging in their school community. Furthermore, their notion of their neighbourhood community is even more abstract and distant.

Relationships between school and community groups are always needing attention and work, but this is not the problem. When you don’t feel like you belong to a community and you don’t see opportunities to influence how your community grows and develops, I think that is a problem.

I believe both sectors can learn from the work of Peter Block. His approach is being taken up in community restoration initiatives around the world. The community restoration approach brings an engagement structure with clear intentions and a process to follow.  You can learn all about these methods by visiting “a small group” web site , viewing his videos on YouTube or finding his books at your local store.

Continuing to do the same old tried and true methods used for designing strategies and managing problems will not get us closer to engaging our community. I think many individuals and organizations are moving away from the mindset that  keeps us thinking we can problem solve our community into the future.

More and more, we are recognizing that as individuals, organizations and as sectors we can’t solve community…but we can help create conditions where authentic community engagement  happens.

If we can do this,then every day citizens, service organizations and schools systems will be able to create a future for the good of all and we will cease our endless infatuation with fixing things instead of nurturing a future full of potential and possibilities. This is my take on the topic, do you have any thoughts to share?

Related Posts:

10 Keys to Healthy Community Change – Margaret Wheatley

Restoring Community – Peter Block

Dealing with Complexity and Systemic Challenges in York Region

Brent Learning Community community dialogue roundtable