The Community – School Roundtable was an event that brought over 80 people from very diverse organizations and sectors together. The Roundtable was organized by a group of school and community partners in York Region. It was an Open Space session in which you can choose your own topic to lead or select a topic that you wish to participate in. With the “rule of 2 feet” you can find another topic to participate in if you don’t find the session right for you. Here is how the workshop organizers framed the session.

Goals

The goals of the School Community Round Table are to bring our collective wisdom together to:

• Increase achievement and success for all our children and youth;
• Share perspectives on community engagement;
• Explore a different conversation about school/community relationships; and
• Discover new ways to strengthen our school/community relationships.

Our overarching question for the open space conversation is:

How can school and community partners work together over the next ten years to support children and youth in reaching their full potential?

I have 3 videos from the session. The first one is on this post. You can view the opening words of welcome from the Directors of Education from our respective York Region Boards of Education and an excerpt that shows a bit of the topic setting process.

I had a great time leading a discussion titled “changing the nature of the conversation for civic engagement”. I adopted the question format used in Peter Block’s community restoration approach to civic engagement. It was just a snippet from his model but it did prove to me that powerful results can come from powerful questions.

I like his approach because it frees up the participants to think of what’s possible instead of what do we have to fix and going down that problem solving road. The people in my group shared some very personal and insightful comments about what is community and what is civic engagement.

Brent Learning Community, networks openspace roundtable

An interview with Will Davis on Social Capital and Digital Inclusion I have looked at and read many accounts of the UK online learning centres. In Britain, they are so far ahead of Canada in terms of understanding the importance of digital literacy for everyone, especially those that are disenfranchised, without family supports, the unemployed or those experiencing poverty and homelessness (or at risk of). We can learn from their experience.

Will Davies reflects on Social Capital and Digital Inclusion from Tim Davies on Vimeo.

Brent Education, Learning Community, Services, networks, purpose socialinclusion britain digitalliteracy

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.

Read more…

Brent Learning Community community dialogue roundtable

I found these videos in my research on A Small Group and the work of Peter Block. I haven’t watched all of them yet however Margaret Wheatley is a world renowned thought leader on community change so I don’t expect to be disappointed. There are 10 videos in all with each one covering a unique aspects of healthy community change.

Lately I’ve being immersed in a variety of community restoration and change groups. The focus for many of these efforts seem to default to righting inequities and fixing long standing communication and power issues. People like Margaret Wheatley and Peter Block offer alternative strategies for community change. I am suggesting that we use or integrate elements of these community engagement strategies however the shift to that thinking is pretty hard to make.

Despicte these challenges, I’m enjoying the planning sessions and I especially like contributing my experience in online communication strategies and tools to support these change processes. I hope you find some great questions in watching these videos. As Peter Block says, the right questions can be more transformative than answers.

Brent Learning Community, Research, networks community change peterblock restorative

York Region community organizations and those with a keen interest in solving long standing systemic issues are beginning a process of discussion on “engagement”. The York Region District School Board, concerned about school – community engagement, is a key public organization in the planning for a roundtable discussion event to held in February 2010. The roundtable planning group is comprised of members from a diverse collection of social benefit organizations and local planning networks.

In an environment where cynicism prevails, the challenge of tapping into new and creative actions seems daunting at best. To me, the driving questions at this point revolves around “how do we create a stronger sense of belonging, marked by authentic engagement (in its many forms), in our community”.

When we talk about community, belonging, engagement, systemic barriers, authentic dialogue, inclusive processes etc.. we are talking complexity. How do we have a meaningful and sense making discussion when we are constantly wearing our silo centred, agency representative hat? It’s a bit like seeing the fairy dancing on the head of the pin. You know that fairy is there but you just have to hold the pin in the right way to see him/her.

I think that one of the ways to see that fairy is to somehow suspend or put on the shelf for the moment our agency representation hat and just wear our community citizen hat. When we do that, we can engage with each other and talk about what community means, where does belonging fit into community and what might our community look like if we waved our magic wand and on and on. I think there would be wonderful lessons in that discussion that we can build on and potentially influence policy makers in our organizations. Even more importantly, those lessons can impact us on individual (personal) levels as community citizens, potentially creating a ripple effect in our relationships within our spheres of belonging.

This video by Mark Schenk from Anecdote expands the explanation of the Cynefin model. I like this model as a tool that can help us understand what we are getting into with our community roundtable planning discussions. I think there are some great tips in the Cynefin framework that we can incorporate in our planning for of the roundtable. I especially like the simplicity of the Cynefin framework and how it points to the importance of looking at patterns and building on patterns that show promise.

Brent Learning Community, Research, purpose community, cynefin, yorkregion

I liked this post by Harold Jarache, titled Cooperation: Moving From Soft Skill to Hard Skill. I thought his viewpoint could help in discussions amongst community groups, consumers and social change agents. The theme of the post is on cooperation and collaboration. Jarche makes a clear distinction between the two.

In my mind, when you choose to follow a plan that has cooperation or collaboration as the central unifying approach your intentions and approach is governed by your choice of these two concepts. I recommend (hope) that we in community round table style meetings, the planners don’t have both approaches in play at the event because that will be confusing and turn off attendees (i.e. The people who wear their resident hat will seek open dialogue, the agency representative person will seek problem solving and solutions).

I believe cooperation is the best course to follow for open forum, town hall style discussions.  If the choice is collaboration, I believe the event will end up defaulting to a agency driven agenda that has the usual need, problem solving, solution, outcomes etc as the over riding discussion and we won’t get very far in the goal of fostering community – engagement conversations.

Looking at Jarache’s matrix below, I see the open forum roundtable events as something that is attempting to tap into emergent (forming) dialogue and it resides in the complex, Networks, Emergent, Cooperation level. Choosing a cooperation approach will require us to structure the round table event with a well framed invitation, clear dialogue, positive, inviting, driven type questions, size of small groups discussion, reporting back to large group etc.

What do you think, cooperation or collaboration?

Brent Learning Community colaboration, cooperation, cynefin, dialogue, matrix

In 2010 I will be hosting workshops for organizations that are re-tooling or aligning their online communication strategy to enhance responsiveness, trust and relevance to their stakeholders.

My goal is to initiate a bottoms up, learning and discovery process that will help organizations identify their best starting points for establishing their online communication strategy.

I believe that non profit organizations can increase their resilience, capacity and sustainability in the face of rapid change and ever decreasing resources by utilizing well thought out online strategies.

It’s a simple fact that consumers and supporters expect more from organizations via online tools and online access to resources. Non profits need to go where their constituents are and that is increasingly online.

My starting point is that caring relationships, opportunities for meaningful participation and genuine communication with supporters, consumers and donors fuels an organization’s resilience. These dimensions need to be examined internally by key staff and then the findings can be organized into an online strategy that is delivered through the organization’s web site.

In the workshop, staff will be engaged in a discussion and a shared learning process in which an online strategy can begin to take shape. This bottoms up approach taps into the organizations creativity and wisdom. Once the online strategy is in place and the most appropriate social media tools are implemented the organization begins a process of listening, learning and adapting to the new culture and environment they are inhabiting.

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Brent Business, Learning Community, Services, networks workshop onlinestrategy learning startingpoint

James Watson, Peer Research Assistant and Dr. Sean Rourke gave a wonderful presentation on their research project at the World Aids Day event sponsored by the Aids Committee of York Region.

I recorded Jame’s presentation as I was very interested in hearing from a person with lived experience speak about their participation in a community based research project. A few years ago, I co-managed a community based research project. We had 46 youth take on the role of youth researchers, examining youth poverty in York Region from a young persons perspective. Since then I continue to seek out learning opportunities related to community based research. If you are interested in learning more about community based research, the Wellesley Institute in Toronto offers in-depth training and workshops.

Jame’s talk was outstanding. He spoke so genuinely, honestly and expertly about his work and the special talents that he brought to the research project. I especially appreciated, as did other in attendance, his account of how taking on the role of Peer Research Assistant transformed his life, his sense of purpose and career direction.

Dr. Sean Rourke spoke very succinctly about community based research from his perspective. There is no doubt this report is a benchmark example of the potency of Community Based Research.

The full report can be accessed through the Positive Spaces, Healthy Places web site. This report is a great example of the benefits of community based research as a means to bring about change on the policy, service, practitioner and consumer levels.

James Watson – Peer Research Assistant, Community Based Research from Brent MacKinnon on Vimeo.

See also:

Youth Community Mapping Program – community based action research

Non Profits Stretched to the Limit – An Economic Impact Survey

Stomping Out Stigma in York Region – Talking About Mental Illness (TAMI)

Non Profit Starvation Cycle

Mobilize This: Research Impact KM Unit @ York University

Danah Boyd – Not So Hidden Politics of Class Online

Toronto Teen Sex Survey – What Can York Region Learn

Building Resiliency with Learning Networks

Brent Education, Learning Community, purpose cbr, Research

The World Aids Day in York Region was organized by the Aids Committee of York Region. Radha Bhardwaj, Executive Director of the Aids Committee of York Region gave an opening address that was both inspiring and alarming.

She spoke eloquently about the dire circumstances and stigma faced by people living with HIV/Aids. The alarming part of her message was the lack of supports and resources in York Region for individuals and families coping with this disease.

There is much work to be done in York Region. We need to catch up to other municipalities that provide far more support to those experiencing the hardships brought about by HIV/Aids.

Brent Learning Community

Stretched to the Limit: An Economic Impact Survey
With little relief in sight, nonprofits and charities are bracing for the worst

CALGARY, AB – November 30, 2009 – Results of an economic impact survey conducted by the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations (CCVO) in October indicate Alberta’s nonprofit organizations and charities have been adapting to the recession, but they are stretched to the limit with little capacity to adjust to increased demand or reduced funding.

Despite predictions that economic conditions will improve in 2010, the real financial impact of the recession is expected to hit the voluntary sector next year. Although organizations reported reductions in 2009, the major impact of government cuts and decreased revenues is expected to hit in 2010.

Many organizations reported reducing costs and said they were operating as lean as possible, trying to preserve programs and services. More than 30 per cent of those surveyed, however, had to make cuts in services. If economic predictions are correct and 2010 presents the greatest challenges nonprofits and charities have faced in this recession, even more programs and services will be on the chopping block.

Read more…

Brent Learning Community, Services nonprofits recession hardtimes