Family Resource Centers in Sri Lanka can help students all students achieve academic success
School-community
partnership is a must today
Unlike the earlier days, schools today need to step
forward to create partnerships with their community to meet the needs of
children and families. This is simply because when needs are not met, they
create barriers to authentic learning among students. By creating a partnership
with the community, you support immediate families in locating services and
resources within the boundaries of the community irrespective of household income.
Families today have diverse needs such as health care, nutrition, after school
care, recreation, mental health services, and counseling of various types,
which differs from a family to family. So, families access these services in
different ways based primarily on their disposable income and education levels.
For example, some have insurance, and others must rely on services provided by
public funding or non-profit agencies. There are three parties to the
partnership we are talking about: the school, the families, and the community
services that surrounds a child’s environment. This is represented in the
diagram below.
Appointing
someone to take the lead
It is not easy for a school to create the above
linkages with the community ignoring the busy schedule they have for the entire
year. So, the management should ensure that someone is appointed to coordinate
these three parties to ensure a stable partnership. The intermediary who can be
called as a social worker will create and utilize the partnerships between the
school and community members to support families that are challenged, facing a
crisis and their children who are academically at risk. The aim of the social
worker is to reduce non-academic barriers to learning, increase active student
engagement, improve punctuality, and ensure that all children are ready to
learn when they come to school. The social worker will assist students and
families in finding the support and resources they need to overcome their
issues and improve their situation. It
is important to learn that the role of the social worker is different from that
of a school counselor, school psychologist, or other school employee. Once this
program functions smoothly, the management can easily notice that it serves as an
early intervention dropout reduction initiative as well as an intervention to improve
attendance in classrooms.
The social worker acts to connect students and their
families with a network of resources. The resources include natural support systems
and networks of community members as well as formal support from agencies. When
a social worker is located at the school, teachers and school counselors can
better focus their energies on the roles for which they were hired. This can
also help teachers and parents reduce complaints in parent- teacher meetings,
instead look at the issues as opportunities for change. In addition, schools
with social workers report that connecting families with support and services
they need helps reduce at-risk behaviors. Schools and communities are
discovering value in saving resources in the long-term through prevention and
early intervention activities, which can also serve as a competitive-edge over
education providers. School can use many strategies to provide outreach to families. Some schools have
found that having a place where families can gather as family-teacher get togethers, come to receive support,
volunteer their services, engage with other families, and have their questions
answered has been valuable. The best example of that has been through a
family resource center model I've come across in Sri Lanka is when some private schools in Colombo extended their support in disaster relief programs through the parent-teacher, old boys/ girls associations followed by a training program on psycho- social support for victims of natural disasters. I believe the program gave some understanding how our external environments as well as internal environments contribute to the mental development of a child.
Who
can be a social worker?
The person, the school wishes to employ should be well-trained
to perform the work of a social worker with an exposure to human resource management
and child psychology and sensitive to the networks, connections the community
includes. Thus, the social worker
requires a college degree and holds the experience of delivering, coordinating,
and administrating human services and is culturally sensitive. He should be
able to determine the needs of parents, staff, well-wishers, community leaders,
locate resources, refer clients, and keep client information confidential. He
also should know how to advocate for clients, groups, and communities within
larger systems. In addition, social workers should have the skills needed for
community organizing and development as many training programs are required to
build the essential skills in students, parents alike and generate awareness.
Whenever school-community partnerships are developed, there needs to be a
person who is responsible for holding the vision of the partnership and
building the connections that form the partnership. So as you can see within a
compassionate school, that is going to be a social worker.
Although some might mistake the afore-mentioned
partnership program with a regular seminar/ workshop conducted for parents and
staff members, it is important to identify the clear difference of the ongoing support
the partnership provides and the impact assessment it follows. To ensure a
sustainable process within a school community, establishing a permanent center
with skilled social workers is essential that can be called as a family
resource center.
A
family resource center
A family resource center should be located in the
school or in a place that can be easily accessed by students and their
families. A family resource center should create a respectful, safe, relaxed,
and comfortable place for families to explore advocacy, parent support, and
community resources, which also connect parents with training, case management,
a resource lending library, and onsite technology. These centers should focus
on providing programs when no other resource exists. Families (parents) are
recognized as the first teachers of their children as children spend a
considerable amount of their time at home and their community. Therefore, these centers should offer support
to parents and other family and community members who assist children in learning.
This support will serve as a foundation for schools to help reduce the effects
of trauma and struggles faced by students and families that a teacher finds
challenging to invest her time and energy in to resolve due to demands made by
the management of the school. These centers strengthen families and allow
schools to harness the synergy that becomes available when family members are
advocates, and supporters of the education system.
Although there are many advantages of running a family
resource centers, some include a warm, welcoming environment for the child in
the school, improved school attendance, increased student engagement and active
learning, opportunities to give back to school community and school to
community, space to share personal stories, interaction with the school
management, recognition of family voice, and networking to name a few. Our training in Xavier, Crescent schools concluded successfully with a training session on how we can build partnerships with the community with the academic panel and two representatives from the management.
a) Every single program we intend to organize should affirm, strengthen cultural, racial and linguistic identities. For instance, we make sure that the number of participants in each program resembles all ethnic/ minority groups and their voice is heard by encouraging exchange, dialogue through activities etc.,
b) Staff and families work together with equality and respect. Despite the personal preferences , we encourage mutual trust, respect and cooperation in all activities which will also be monitored and evaluated.
c) Mobilize formal and informal services is paramount to keep operations running smooth , cut down on expenditure and create safe spaces
d) Programs contribute to community building. Schools should work towards promoting volunteerism among students , parents and teachers for a healthy community. The only way to bring change in the future is to invest in the future generation by making them become socially responsible citizens, and parents/ teachers acting as their mentors in the process.
e) Programs are flexible and continually responsive. This is important because most programs should be flexible enough to accommodate the schedule of a busy parent as well as provide feedback and ensure the transparency of information flow to maintain the smooth functioning of the program.
f) Families are resources. By appealing to parents and community to improve the school environment to enhance a positive learning environment by considering them valuable is the first step towards the success of the program.
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