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Community  Conversation  on  Education    with  Beausoleil  First  Nation  /  Chimnissing,  Ontario  

Supported  by  YouLEAD,  IICRD  April  2017  

   Trip  Report  by:  Sabrina  Bonfonti  YouLEAD  Ontario  Host:  Sarah  Sandy    Key  Community  partner/contacts:    Nancy  Assance,  Beausoleil  (Chimnissing)  First  Nation  Education  Director  and  Elementary  School  team  participants  in  YouLEAD  Certificate  Course-­‐      Art  of  Hosting  in  BC,  March  2017.    Objectives  of  the  Trip:    

• IICRD  to  give  practical  on-­‐the-­‐ground  support  for  Sarah  (Ontario  YouLEAD  Coordinator)  with  YouLEAD-­‐related  activities,  including  co-­‐facilitation  and  meetings  for  partner-­‐development.  

• Specifically,  to  help  design  and  implement  a  community  conversation.  • IICRD  to  offer  follow-­‐up  support  and  practice  /  implementation  of  skills  for  YouLEAD  

Certificate  course  participants  (Art  of  Hosting).  • Relationship  &  trust  building  between  IICRD  rep  in  person  and  Beau  Soleil  First  Nation  

community  members  –  the  Education  Department  and  Elementary  School  staff.      

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Summary  of  Activity:    Tuesday  April  4th    Having  arrived  late  the  night  before,  in  the  morning  Sabrina  met  Sarah  for  breakfast  check-­‐in  meeting.  Then  they  went  to  meet  Nancy  (Sarah’s  manager  at  the  band  office,  the  Education  Director).  The  purpose  of  the  next  day’s  community  conversation  on  Education  was  clarified  and  a  promotional  poster  created.      It  was  clarified  that  the  purpose  was  to  gain  community  input  towards  a  Strategic  Plan  for  

Education  (related  to  but  broader  than  just  YouLEAD  per  se  or  Sarah’s  other  project).      Nancy,  Sarah  and  Rebecca  (another  AoH  participant)  had  facilitated  a  Strategic  Planning  session  with  Education  staff  a  week  earlier.  But  Nancy  pointed  out  that  the  voices  of  parents  and  community  should  really  be  a  guiding  force  for  the  plan  so  she  wanted  as  broad  input  as  possible.    

 It  was  determined  that  a  drop-­‐in  style  conversation  would  be  helpful  since  many  people  wouldn’t  be  able  to  come  at  one  time  or  another,  or  wouldn’t  be  prepared  to  stay  for  a  longer  focused  conversation.  However,  we  also  wanted  to  try  to  have  a  focused  conversation  at  some  point  during  the  day.      Next  Sabrina  took  a  tour  of  the  community  led  by  Sarah,  with  stops  at  all  the  various  education,  health  and  social  services  centres  to  promote  the  next  day’s  conversation.  Most  time  was  spent  visiting  with  the  two  Right  to  Play  partners  and  reconnecting  with  AoH  participants  at  the  school  (including  the  Principal)  to  gain  their  support  with  facilitating  aspects  of  the  next  day.    Sarah  also  placed  a  food  order  for  lunch  and  dinner  to  be  available  the  next  day.    In  the  afternoon  and  early  evening  Sabrina  met  with  Sarah,  later  joined  by  Nancy,  to  come  up  with  a  more  detailed  design  plan  for  the  community  conversation.  Two  key  factors  were  paramount  to  the  design:  having  a  mix  of  drop-­‐in  and  focused  conversation  time,  and  finding  a  way  to  keep  the  conversation  focused  on  potentials  and  positive  outcomes  (what  people  want  vs.  what  they  don’t  want.)  Sabrina  suggested  using  the  SOAR  model  for  strategic  planning  (based  on  Appreciative  Inquiry  theory  vs.  SWOT  analysis.)  That  night  she  prepared  a  poster  with  4  questions  based  on  SOAR:  S    -­‐    What  are  the  greatest  strengths  currently?    O    -­‐    What  new  opportunities  (e.g.  programs,  services,  processes)  would  be  helpful?    A    -­‐    What  dream  should  we  aspire  to  achieve?    R    -­‐    What  results  will  we  see  /  hear  /  feel  if  we’re  on  track  with  our  goals?          

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Final  design  aspects  included:    

• Placing  the  school’s  pow  wow  drum  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  covered  in  colour  pictures  of  students  doing  traditional  activities  at  the  school    

   • Placing  a  circle  of  chairs  around  the  drum  with  a  large  opening  space,  and  a  talking  stick  

in  the  centre  (We  decided  to  wait  and  see  if  at  some  point  a  critical  mass  sat  down,  and  at  that  point  we’d  start  to  pass  the  talking  stick,  borrowed  from  the  Kindergarten  class)    

   

• Placing  a  circle  of  tables  around  the  edge  of  the  room,  with  the  SOAR  prompts  and  post-­‐its  and  pens  at  each  table.    

 • There  was  a  station  for  each  of  six  key  areas  needing  input  in  the  strategic  plan.  We  

situated  them,  at  Nancy’s  suggestion,  according  to  the  lifecycle  going  clockwise.  I.e.  Starting  with  early  childhood,  elementary  school,  secondary  school  &  right  to  play  &  bus  transport,  post-­‐secondary  &  adult  education,  and  library  &  tuition  assistance  &  education  administration.    

   

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• A  welcome  table  with  a  sign-­‐in  sheet,  prize  raffle  draw  and  a  survey  on  an  education  decision  (re:  school  closing  time  on  Fridays)  

 

   

                 

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• Nancy  also  brought  three  aspects  from  the  staff  meeting  on  strategic  focus:    

o A  timeline  of  colonization  including  national  and  some  locally  specific  facts  

   

o A  table  of  all  former  Band  Chiefs’  names  

   

o And  a  wall  of  “bureaucracy”  showing  all  the  agencies  and  orgs  her  Dept.  interacts  with  or  is  bound  by  in  some  way  

         

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Wednesday  April  5th    The  three  planners  (Nancy,  Sarah  &  Sabrina)  met  at  the  school  at  9am  and,  with  help  from  a  few  other  school  staff,  set  up  the  room.  Nancy  brought  tri-­‐fold  boards  for  each  station  and  pictures  Angela  (Principal)  printed.  Sarah  brought  lots  of  pipe  cleaners  and  playdoh  and  coloured  paper  which  was  left  around  the  room  to  inspire  creativity.  (These  were  very  popular  at  the  end  of  the  day  when  many  pre-­‐school  age  kids  were  present!)    

 There  was  some  discussion  of  roles  and  functions  since  we  didn’t  know  what  to  expect.  Sarah  clarified  that  welcoming  and  inclusion  was  a  high  priority  for  her  so  she  played  an  orienting  role  for  people  coming  in,  helped  at  times  by  Rebecca,  Tiffany  and  others.    

   

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There  was  a  steady  stream  of  people  coming  in  during  the  morning,  about  30  people  had  dropped  in  by  the  end  of  lunch.  There  tended  to  be  about  3-­‐5  people  visiting  at  most  at  any  one  time,  so  we  didn’t  find  a  good  moment  for  a  focused  conversation  but  Sarah  took  notes  from  casual  conversations.  Nancy  shared  the  history  wall.  

 

             

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 Children  were  given  a  bag  of  gifts  from  the  Education  Dept.    

     Some  people  seemed  to  come  for  lunch  but  then  when  invited  to  go  around  to  the  stations  did  that  with  interest  and  by  1pm  there  were  many  great  suggestions  on  the  boards.      

       

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                                                   During  a  lull  in  the  afternoon  the  staff  present  decided  to  warm  up  the  talking  stick  by  passing  it  around  and  saying  how  we  were  feeling  about  the  day  so  far.  People  mentioned  being  happy  with  the  number  of  people  that  had  come  through  so  far  and  the  quality  of  suggestions  made  on  the  post-­‐its.  We  also  discussed  how  to  strike  up  a  more  formal  round  and  discussion  if  the  time  felt  right.        

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   With  the  dinner  at  5pm  more  people  started  to  arrive.  By  5:30  a  critical  mass  had  arrived  and  many  had  sat  down  in  the  circle.  (About  10  people,  including  4  teachers  from  the  AoH  training).  A  talking  stick  was  passed  around  twice,  with  people  saying  their  name  and  whatever  they  felt  called  to  speak.  The  group  grew  to  about  18  during  the  rounds,  including  several  kids  arriving.      Sarah  had  the  intuition  that  the  group  was  now  too  large  to  have  an  in-­‐depth  conversation  in  a  large  circle,  and  turned  to  Sabrina  saying,  “Let’s  do  a  World  Café!”    “Yes!”  Sabrina  replied.  A  great  moment  of  implementing  learning  from  the  AoH  training  last  month!    Sarah  let  the  group  know  that  we  would  take  a  short  break  to  reconfigure  the  room  and  then  we’d  give  further  instruction.  Quickly  Devon  and  Rebecca  (AoH  participants)  were  recruited  to  be  conversation  hosts  along  with  Sarah.  We  thought  it  would  be  good  to  have  experienced  AoH  trainees  facilitate  as  hosts  and  keep  notes  to  ensure  a  smooth  process.      We  decided  to  use  3  of  the  4  SOAR  questions  as  the  basis  of  the  world  café.  Using:  Round  1  -­‐  A  (starting  with  positive  dreams)    Round  2  -­‐  R  (getting  into  more  details  about  the  dreams),    

Round  3  -­‐  S  (looking  for  current  strengths  that  already  exist  to  reach  those  dreams).  Art  of  Hosting  Participants  Lead  a  World  Café!

           

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   Three  small  groups  were  formed  by  Sarah,  Devon  &  Rebecca,  with  three  rounds  of  15mins  each.  Sabrina  and  Nancy  played  with  the  kids  to  help  parents  focus,  while  Sabrina  also  kept  time  and  announced  the  questions  for  each  round.  A  final  round  was  done  with  people  saying  how  they  felt  about  the  process.  Nancy  mentioned  next  steps,  including  that  all  the  feedback  from  the  day  would  be  looked  at  by  Education  Dept.  staff  and  she  committed  to  hold  another  community  circle  on  Education  to  share  back  priorities  and  continue  the  process  of  community  gaining  more  voice.      During  the  final  round,  several  people  said  they  would  be  happy  to  come  back  to  another  circle.  A  few  people  mentioned  that  it  was  a  good  step,  and  well  done,  but  also  wanted  to  see  it  go  somewhere  beyond  talk  –  hoping  that  more  steps  will  continue  and  real  action  would  come  from  it.  It  seemed  clear  that  some  doorways  of  interest  were  opened  between  the  school  and  community  i.e.  several  educators  mentioned  wanting  to  bring  community  members  into  the  classroom,  especially  around  traditional  skills  and  language,  while  several  community  members  said  they  would  like  to  be  part  of  that.  It  was  identified  there  might  be  policy  or  other  barriers  to  making  that  happen  which  need  to  be  further  looked  at.  The  circle  ended  around  7:30.