Working with a "School Community"
The most recent piece of work has been very successful and we hope to
find a couple more schools to work with in the next month. It does take
a high level of trust for a Head/school and is best if we already have a
relationship.
Primary schools in multi-cultural areas are ready-made communities and
most people recognise the observation that although the children work
and play together, parents in the playground tend to stay within their
own communities. This is such a lost opportunity.
Our work in the primary school started in November when we led workshops called: How can we get parents mixing together: our children mix so why don't we? This was a very supportive school that already received peer mediation training from us. We held 3 workshops before Christmas that were very exciting - parents who had children in the same class who had never spoken, parents who were so keen to get to know each other, so much energy, so much to say.
Issues came up that had to be sensitively handled by the facilitators and the feedback from the first session (18 people) was delight and also relief that they had been able to speak honestly and air concerns. Quite quickly parents decided that they did not want a 'talk shop' but wanted to do something together and they decided on an international summer fair. We are now supporting this group in this collaborative venture. One key element to the way we work is for all meetings and workshops to be participatory and to break the large group into small groups as much as possible.
Another key element is that this collaboration is sustainable when Conflict and Change has left. Three parents are now receiving training in communication and conflict resolution skills and there is a growing number of other parents that want this training. We may run a course just for these parents.