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.
We worked in a Newham primary school in 2008 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 first held 3 workshops 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 supoorted the 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 have since recieved training in communication and conflict resolution skills and there is a growing number of other parents that want this training. We have since supported the staff at three primary schools with their parents groups by either running a couple of Get-To-Know-You sessions or by coaching staff members in ways to encourage more participation among their parents.
