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>> Once again, welcome to Growing Culturally Welcoming, and Validating Programs.
This is the first series of three webinars that we'll be doing.
Today's session is titled Laying the Foundation.
We are glad that you could join us today, and we look forward to spending some time with you.
We're web casting to you today from the West coast From the LEANRS project.
The LEARNS project is the Corporation for National Community Services Training
and Technical Assistance for youth services.
My name is Eric, and I was saying, you've probably gotten emails or phone calls from me,
so look forward to working with you today.
I'll be the Webex host for the session, and I'll introduce myself a little bit,
and then I'll let our main presenter, Jin Lin Woo [assumed spelling], introduce herself.
And then we'll cover a couple of housekeeping items and then dive in.
So as for myself I'm former VISTA and recruiter for the Corporation
for National and Community Service.
After I served in those two capacities, I worked as a trainer
in education consultants before returning to the northwest to join the LEARNS team
where I help develop and deliver face-to-face and online training sessions
for programs working in tutoring, mentoring, out of school time
and other youth oriented services.
Jin, would you like to introduce yourself?
>> Thank you, Eric.
Hello everyone.
Welcome. Good morning.
My Name is Jin Lin Woo.
Please call me Jin.
I'm talking to you from Seattle, Washington from my bedroom, which has the best soundproofing.
So hello. In terms of who I am, part of my life has really been about VISTA service.
And my service started in '68 and have been alone and active alone for now 40 yeas.
My training is in education, and for almost nine years I helped oversee the diversity training
for the Corporation for National Community Service.
But speaking just as a person, I grew up kind of an old soul, and I have always cared
that the classrooms that I've been in, the programs that I've been
in that we are doing our best to respect and honor all the cultures of the students
at [inaudible] and families that are represented in whatever context.
So I'm really happy to be joining you with this conversation.
>> Thank you, Jin.
And we have of couple activities in a second for us to get
to know all of you a little bit better.
But just in looking at our registration information, we see that we've got a good mix
of people from all across the country working in different types of organizations.
Most of you work in or work with a program
that provides some sort of service to children or youth.
We refer to all young people collectively as youth,
so when you hear us say youth we're also talking about young children as well.
We know we have a few people that may be working with adults, or different populations,
or may not be doing tutoring or mentoring.
And that's fine.
Just so you know, most of our content is designed for programs that are working
with youth, but we think a lot of what we'll talk about is applicable to different types
of populations and different types of programs as well.
In terms of affiliation with the corporation, looks like we have a good representation
of VISTAs, so it's always nice to see VISTAs on these being a former VISTA myself.
And looks like we have some folks from state education agencies as well as folks
from different types of organizations.
So welcome to all of you.
Glad you could be with us.
Let me just cover a couple of housekeeping items, like three.
So the first thing we'd ask is if you could, if you could mute your phone by pressing mute
or mike if you have it on a console.
Or if not, you can also use star, six on your phone.
That will mute your phone for the conference.
[Inaudible comment]
>> Okay. Some people are muting their phones.
We had a full registration of 50 people.
I'm seeing that we have only 19 in Webex, and I'm guessing there are probably some people
on the phone that are not in Webex.
So if we stay a small group like this, we might dispense with the muting
and might just have a more open conversation.
But at least to start until we know about how many people we're actually going to have.
We'd like to have you ask questions, and make comments,
or offer up ideas using a couple of the tools in Webex.
So you'll see first of all, and I'm just going to point you to it here on the slide.
But you should see a button that looks like a hand, and that's the raised hand icon.
And it's going to appear over here on the right somewhere
on your screen in the participant list.
So if you click that, that tells us that you have a question.
So, thank you, Brittany [assumed spelling].
[Laughter]
>> How about other folks?
If you could just quickly click on that raised hand icon.
Thank you.
Okay, so we're seeing that folks have gotten that down pretty good.
>> Uh oh. I don't know why I'm not finding it.
For [inaudible] do I just click any hand?
>> Oh, well, you'll see it on our presentation slide, and I'll click on that right now.
You should see a little button that looks like a hand.
It'll be over here on the right-hand side.
>> I see lots of hands.
>> It should be a little bit lower on the tool bar.
>> Oh.
>> Other buttons across the bottom.
>> You probably see the hands next to the names, so if you go to the bottom of the list of names,
you'll see some little icons; a hand, a checkmark, a X.
>> Oh, I'm sorry.
There I am.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Do I put it up?
Oh, I see.
Thank you.
>> Sure.
>> This is my first webcast.
>> No problem.
I'm sure it is for other people as well.
And actually this is our first time doing a webinar with Jin,
so we're learning as we go as well.
But if everyone that raised their hand, if you could click
that button again to lower your hands.
Thank you.
And then another way that you can give us feedback or ask us a question is
to use the chat panel that will appear on the right-hand side of your screen somewhere.
Now some of these panels appear and then disappear depending on what's open.
So you may need to-- and I'll point it out on the slide.
You may need to click a button that looks like a down arrow, or it may be facing
to the right just to open and close your panels.
So let me point out one more Webex feature, and that is the annotation,
which you will actually see at the top of your screen or at the top of your Webex screen,
which looks like a series of tools you might find in Microsoft Word.
So there's a pointer tool, a text tool, a rectangle tool, et cetera.
So we have a couple of-- or we have a few activities built into this presentation
where we'd like you to use those annotation tools including one on the next slide.
And for those of you that are on the phone but are not in Webex,
we apologize that Webex is not behaving for you.
And we'll kind of tell you what we're doing as we go through the activities.
And we'll also invite you to just speak up and share your thoughts as well.
So speaking of the annotation tools, on slide four we have a little activity
to get us thinking about growing culturally welcoming and validating programs.
So we'd like to know how you say hello or how you greet people in your culture.
So what I'd like to invite you to do is use the text tool.
Again, that's the button at the top of your Webex screen that looks like the letter t,
and looks like I might need to set some privileges here.
Okay. Now you should be able to click it.
So if you click the button that looks like the letter t and then click on the right-hand side
of the table, you should be able to click, type in how you greet people from your culture.
And then you also may need to click somewhere else on the screen just to set your text.
So, hi, good.
People are getting this.
Hello. Good.
What's up, good.
And if you're on the phone, what we're doing is we're having folks on slide four type
in the way they say hello or the way they greet people on the right-hand side of this slide.
So [inaudible], hey there, hey how are you, [foreign word].
That sounds fun.
Which language is that?
Oh, you might-- whoever wrote that might have their phone on mute.
>> I'm trying to unmute.
This is Chris in [inaudible].
>> Hi, Chris.
>> That is Inner Salish, part Native American.
>> Oh, great.
>> It actually says [foreign word].
>> Okay. I missed that first part.
Okay, yea.
>> Okay, thanks.
>> Having served in Brooklyn, this is Jin, I can see someone wrote, "Yo."
And I relate to that as well.
>> Okay, so it looks like most of you have the hang of that tool.
So we'll go ahead and move on.
And thanks for participating in that little warm-up activity.
And we like to use, or demonstrate, or have you practice with one more Webex tool.
And then we'll set Jin loose with the main content of the webinar.
And this will also help us get to know you a little bit better.
I'm going to open a poll, which should appear on the left-hand side of your screen somewhere.
And this is just asking how long you've been working with youth whether it's
in your current position, or previous positions, or previous lives that you lived.
Okay, and so for folks on the phone, we're just asking people in Webex
to indicate how long they've been working with youth.
So the choice left in years; one to three years, four to six years,
seven to ten years, and then ten or more years.
>> Make sure you hit the submit button.
I kept forgetting to do that.
>> Yes, thanks, Jin.
>> Okay, it looks like everyone that's in Webex provided an answer.
Thank you.
So let me abush the results so we can see who we have with us.
Oh, it looks like we have a good mix of people from with different levels or different amounts
of time working with youth including a good contingent of some veterans,
people have been working for ten or more years with youth.
And I should say and I'm sure Jin will echo this as well,
for those of you who have been doing this for a while
and actually throughout this presentation we'd love
to have you share your ideas and your experiences as well.
You know, we have information we'd like to share with you.
But we're always learning from you as well and from people we meet and talk with.
So we encourage everyone to share what you have, and it looks like we're going
to be a small enough group to where we can be really interactive
and really invite some feedback or really get some feedback.
Any other observations on these results or on the saying hello activity you want
to comment on, Jin, before we get started?
>> Yes, I do.
Thanks, Eric.
I want to say that we have designed a couple activities,
and we're playing with this webinar format to try to see how engaged we can keep it.
Just even the simple activity of asking people how they greet and extend welcome to each other
in their communities, in their families to be built into, I think, the whole unit.
And many of you have probably already done that.
But it's a great way to engage parents.
It's a great way to have students in a very natural way share culture and history.
And, you know, these are phrases and words.
There are gestures and a lot of non-verbals that we do
to extend the sense of welcome and affirmation.
So I just want to let you know that every activity that we'll be modeling is something
to be extended and used to build really great conversation.
I want to echo Eric's point about having this be much more
of a conversation that we build together.
There'll be opportunities for your chats to be recorded and summarized as well as any comments
that are made during this webinar.
I prefer-- I'm dislocated really.
And this has been a little challenging just thinking
about talking to you as opposed to with you.
So as much as possible, we'll try to make it a "we" conversation.
And if after this your session, you have a lot to say about Laying the Foundation
or the whole series, please use the feedback and the survey
that follows this to give us information.
And we can also cut and paste that into a document
that everybody participates on this can see.
I think we're ready, Eric.
>> Okay.
>> So you'll notice on slide five,
we clarify that this really is a series, and it's three parts.
And I, again, apologize about yesterday and not being on.
I did something to my lower back and wasn't very mobile for the last couple of days.
So I appreciate the consideration, and I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
In thinking about the work, it really is not something that you can just check off your list
in terms of growing culturally welcoming and validating programs.
It's something we make a commitment to for the long haul.
And I think that the fact that we have an opportunity
to do a series really reinforces the whole idea of it being something that happens over time,
and it's something that we need to grow.
In thinking about what would be useful, I tired to think about supporting a vision of the work.
And so today is really about the big picture, and about laying the foundation,
and understanding clearly why it's important to do, and some of the thinking that's gone
into what do we do when we do the work.
What does that look like?
Next, in two weeks we'll be taking up the second conversation called Assessing the Climate
and the Soil.
And that will be more about clarifying where are you right now, and how do other people
in your community feel about where you are, and how can you build off of that.
So the next session, which will be September 23rd,
is all about creating an accurate base line and growing from where you're starting.
The last session, I know that many of us rely really on our people
to really help build the capacity to do this work.
So we'll focus on what we-- how we engage staff in training, and awareness,
and activities to help us achieve a culturally validating and welcoming program.
But today's conversation is Laying the Foundation and is more about the big picture.
Eric, I think we can go on to the next slide.
Are there any questions?
And I would encourage to use a chat feature
if you have other expectations than what we have proposed.
>> Thanks, Jin, yes.
As Jin said, you could type a question or comment
in the chat panel and send to all participants.
Or if you could raise your hand, and we'll call on you.
Or is there anyone that's on the phone that's not in Webex
that has a question or comment before we proceed?
>> Not me.
Not Gail Hodgkin [assumed spelling].
>> Okay.
>> Great. So in terms of today's goals in keeping with the theme of laying, you know,
a solid foundation, one is really looking at the question of why is it important to do.
Why bother?
Why do this work in terms of growing culturally welcoming and validating programs?
So I have identified a bunch of reasons, and I hope you'll add to that list of reasons.
We'll also look at a program in terms
of what are the different opportunities the program presents
or infrastructure presents in terms of doing the work?
I don't think it's allocated to one kind of activity but really a systems approach to that.
In fact, when people join us, they really get the message.
They get it, and they feel it that they are welcome and that we want
to encourage honoring the different cultural traditions that are in the group.
Also we'll learn about different strategies on how to create culture implicit program.
Over the three part series, we'll also try to provide you resources of work
that other people have done that will give you ideas that you can build off of.
So the strategies will be about ideas but also about samples.
I think that's it for today's call.
In the next slide, slide seven, we'll take the goals and move them into an agenda [beeping].
They kind of fall neatly.
There are three chunks for our conversation, so one is taking up the conversation
about why it's important [beeping].
We're also going to do an exercise where I'm going to do kind
of a shared visioning process [beeping] where we get into what does that look like.
What does that sound like?
What does that feel like to be in the midst of an affirming environment [beeping]?
The last [inaudible] will be around marking the terrain, so there's a lot of work to do.
We've all started in [beeping] different places, and we'll look at that.
>> Okay. Do you hear a beep?
>> Yea, I think we have someone that has put us on [beeping] hold or some other phone issues.
So just like to remind folks to please mute your phone if you haven't already [beeping].
We'll let you know when we'd like to open up the phone lines to have comments.
>> I think that's my phone.
I'm not sure.
There's no mute button on my phone.
>> Okay. What if you tried pressing star, six.
>> Okay. I'll try it.
I hope I don't lose you.
Here I go.
[Beeping]
>> That might not have been you.
Let's see.
Well, we can [beeping]-- we can put it into presentation mode.
>> Yea. Let's try that.
>> So what we're going to do is go ahead and mute everyone's phone [beeping] just
so that Jin can carry on with her material.
>> Presentation mode is now enabled.
>> Are you still with us, Jin?
>> I am. Thanks everyone.
Bear with us.
We'll make sure that you get something valuable out of this.
So if we turn to slide eight, you know, I mentioned that the foundation really should be
about really understanding why it's so important to do.
So we're going to begin this that actually I want to hold off raising the question about why
and do some defining of terminology first.
So, Eric, if you'd advance to the next slide.
We're going to invite folks to join us in this.
So when you think about culturally welcoming and validating programs, I want you to think
about the words or phrases or images that come to your mind.
And in a moment Eric's going to put up the white board.
You'll use your annotation tools, so hit the t, and just share with us what you're thinking.
Like when you think about that, what comes to mind?
Eric, I think you can bring up the board.
>> Okay. Okay, so if folks could use your annotation tools again.
Well, somebody figures out how to use the drawing tool.
You can either draw a picture or use the text tool and type something in on the screen.
Something that presents what a culturally welcoming
and validating program, what that phrase means to you.
And for folks on the phone, we just opened up a screen, and people are typing in words
and drawing pictures that represent what that phrase means for them.
So we have a heart.
We have a sun it looks like.
We have a peace symbol.
We have the words-- oh, that's a creative one, double-wide doorway opening up to a--
I think, that's supposed to be a kaleidoscope.
Accepting pizza, unbiased, open minded, reaching out.
Give people just a couple more moments to draw an image or type a word or phrase
that represents what culturally welcoming means to them.
Someone drew a picture of two hands reaching out to each other or perhaps shaking.
Any in particular that are catching your eye, Jin?
>> Yea, I was, you know, many of your images also resonate with what I was thinking about.
I want to just talk about safe space.
I also think about the freedom to be who you are and to be welcomed in that light.
I think when we started this, the thinking for this series and the planning,
I have to tell you that I grew up in Seattle.
And I'm Chinese-American.
You know, female, my family lived in poverty.
English was my second language, and I lived in a family
where my parents told me everyday how great I was
and how proud I should be of my heritage and everything.
And unfortunately, my school experiences and my early youth experiences--
very few of those environments did a lot to validate me culturally.
And even though I grew up in family where people told me to be proud, I didn't really feel safe
to be who I am in the classroom, in the school, and my after school activities.
So I think also about it's safe to be who I am, and also the question about diversity.
I want to clarify right up front that when we talk about culturally welcoming
and validating programs we're not just talking about ethnic.
We certainly include that, but racial
and ethnic identities are one part of our cultural memberships.
And we're talking about spirituality, and ableness, and gender,
and *** orientation, and immigration safety.
So I want to just put that up front that when we talk about truly culturally welcoming
and validating, it's about embracing the cultural diversity that exists in our families
and in our communities and figuring out ways to do that better and better.
So thank you for sharing that.
In a long workshop, we could also build this into an activity.
But this is sort of moving us into now the question of why is it important to do.
So, Eric, if you bring the next slide, slide number-- is it 11.
Oh, here, ten.
Got it. So I tired to think about what of the 50 reasons I could think,
what might be six key ones, and we came up with this list.
And I'm going to encourage you to use that chat feature
to add your reflection to this conversation.
You know, most people probably on the call-- this is more like preaching to the choir.
You're on the call because you care about this.
You believe in this.
And our work is to bring other people that we work with and the community
into this conversation and into this commitment, so I find that some reasons touch some people,
and other reasons touch other people.
So I provided these six here, and I want to walk through those.
And then as we're talking-- or as I'm talking, if you would please add yours.
And those of you that are on the phone only, we'll give you an opportunity to share ideas.
But the first one that I have up there
about really building off the strengths and assets of families.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, people are bringing their cultural identities
into our program spaces, into our classrooms.
And it's, you know, in my point of view, it's a strengthened asset in the community, richness.
Unfortunately, a lot our young people don't live in worlds where that is viewed as such.
And so I think a really important reason why we need to wave the trail, lead the way,
pioneer in this area is that if we are about affirming communities and building off
of strengths, cultural identity and cultural membership is clearly a fist place to do that.
So I think it's important, because it is who people are.
And we need to step up and do it, because too little of their world isn't doing that.
A second reason is that the research, you know, has told us all along
that self-esteem has everything to do with school success,
with success as an adult, how we feel about ourselves.
The research on prejudice reduction indicates that those of us that are comfortable
in our own skin, comfortable with who we are, proud of who we are much more able to be open
to difference to others and just way more open.
So another good reason is that it's an important foundation.
If people have pride for themselves and their own heritages and who they are,
they will just live differently in the world.
So that's another good reason.
I also think that a lot of us give service to the idea that we want these families
to really participate in these partners and join with us.
I don't know how that happens if you truly aren't extending welcome
in the sect to who they are.
So I think if we want to partner, we need to do that.
Also our communities are really in great need of some leadership around developing a community
of cultural allies, and I think in your programs, especially those of you
that are working with young people, you have an opportunity
to foster a new way of living in community.
And I think that if students get a sense of what it feels like to respect and be respected
and give respect, they're much better able to go back to their homes
and their communities to live that.
So I think that It's another important reason.
And the last one around modeling the sect and providing people the actual experience of what
that looks like and what it doesn't look like.
And, you know, you can create safe spaces for everyone in your community.
And you can be active in that effort.
So those are some of my reasons.
I want to give a moment to anyone else who would like to offer something else
up around why is it important to do this work.
>> Thanks, Jin.
So, yes, if for those of you that are on Webex, if you'd like to add anything to this list,
if you could type it in the chat box, and send it to all participants.
You may need to select all participants from that drop down menu.
For those of you that are on the phone, I'm going to go ahead
and take it out of presentation mode.
And you may have your own phone muted as well, so you might need to also unmute that,
but we'd like to hear from you as well.
>> Presentation mode is now disabled.
>> Any thoughts you want to share, questions?
>> Actually I was just noticing that all participants might not were sending it
to all participants, so if you were-- actually if you could choose instead host and presenter
that way myself and Jin should be able to see it.
So, Jin, I don't know if you can see it, but Mickey shared that another rationale is
that growing a culturally welcoming program creates
and strengthens partnerships across the community.
>> Thanks Mickey.
>> Anyone on the phone have any rationales or ideas
around why this is a valuable thing to do to think about?
No, okay. Well, hearing or seeing none, shall we move ahead, Jin?
>> Yea, and I just want to say that I think in my original take
on this I came up with 25 reasons.
So I think that afterwards I'll put that all in a resource.
What I can tell you is that as you try to rally your team around this conversation,
certain things will stick out to them.
I think a lot commitment comes from a lot of our own personal experiences, so,
you know, the phrasing may to catch them.
But I think that the more reasons why we need to do the work, I think will be helpful.
So I'm going to put a resource together so that you can stimulate conversation in your own team.
Okay, so our first job was really to do that to kind of base this conversation
in all the good reasons why to do the work.
My second phase of this webinar was trying to envision a culturally welcoming environment.
So if you would advance to the next slide, slide 11, we'll begin that work.
>> Sure, and I just wanted to mention and I apologize
for having the chat feature not set up the way it should be.
But before we move on, Jin, I just wanted to mention
that Christine Chaffer [assumed spelling] had wrote a chat thing that growing a culturally
and welcoming program allows people to learn more about the world,
especially those form rural areas and small towns
where there sometimes aren't diverse populations.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay. So now onto slide 11.
>> The reason why I kind of went in this direction for the webinar is I believe
that if you have a good fortune to experience pop culturally affirming environments,
you're already in a better position than some of us to replicate
and create these kinds of programs.
But even if we didn't benefit or experience that, you know, for ourselves,
I believe that envisioning it together can help us go a long way.
So I thought we need to do kind of a share envision process
so that we can bring in the culture view.
What does this look like?
I mean, if I'm going to try to make this happen,
what would it not only look like, but what would it sound like?
What would if feel like?
What maybe would it even smell like or taste like?
I think about that in designing programs especially for children and youth.
I know that what we do if we learn is we use all of our sense, you know.
So unfortunately, sometimes we're in program where someone may be up there telling us
that we'll welcome and, you know, who we are, and who we are culturally is really appreciated,
and we'll be spending time sharing and doing all that.
And that might be one person's take on it.
But all the other messages I'm getting from the physical environment,
from other kinds of meetings that are happening
in the program context, don't tell me that same message.
And so it begins to really water down my understanding that you're really,
really wanting to welcome me and to embrace who I am.
So I'm going to ask us to kind of do a 360 view
of what culturally affirming environments looks like.
So that, Eric, prepares slide number 12.
And you notice we created another white board situation here.
I'm going to ask you to reflect on, you know, when you think about culturally welcoming
and validating programs, what does it look like?
What does it sound like?
You know, what does it feel like?
And even what does it taste like?
I notice that someone has already put up kind voices.
>> Yea. It looks like people have figured this out very quickly.
If you could use-- for this one, let's just use the text tool, so the button that looks
like the letter t. And if you could type something
that you think represents what you would see or hear or feel or taste
in a culturally welcoming program.
>> And, Eric, that way we can have more spaces.
Is that what it is?
>> Yea. We don't have quite as much screen real estate as we did
with a couple of the other activities.
[ Sound effects ]
>> For folks that are just on the phone, people are on slide 12 typing in words or phrases
that represents what they would expect to hear or see or feel
or taste at the presence or visiting a--
[ Sound effects ]
>> Eric, you want to review what's coming up for the folks that are only auditory here?
>> I'll give a sample of just a couple from each in terms of what people might hear.
People have suggested kind voices, people greeting you, for Spanish press one.
For see, we have a couple that we have our open arms and diverse faces,
smiles, and different skin colors.
For feel, a couple people have suggested warm or warmth, welcomes, and accepted.
And then for taste, someone suggested ice cream.
I thought that was fun, but also all kinds of different things; multicultural foods at events,
and different foods to share, and child friendly.
I guess child friendly might fit more under see, but works there as well.
>> Part of this webinar opportunity is we're tying to create some tools also that support you
in facilitating conversations about this, so if you received the packet, not only were you able
to open up the slides but a couple of handouts that we included resource materials.
I just keep making things.
So I have one that is called Elements
of a Culturally Validating Environment that goes through these.
Eric, are you able to bring it up?
>> Sure.
>> There we go.
So here, you know, we don't have enough time to go through each of them.
But I kind of want to start with the hearing and share with you some things that came to mind
for me, and many of them are the same things that you put up as well.
But, you know, that idea the it's not just about words.
It's all about music.
and I think the people read enthusiasm, not just words but the kind
of positive enthusiasm you have for all the culture heritages
and memberships of the community.
So I tried to put in this list, and I hope you find it a useful resource.
I also fell that that second one is really important that it's not only those things
that affirming but that are about advocacy that we challenged this information
in stereotyping and name calling and omissions.
That it's not just about what we're saying, but, you know,
what we're not saying or what other people are saying.
And sometimes name calling is just sort of left without comment,
and I think that if we're trying
to create culturally validating environments, we need to call it.
We need to create book guidelines and create an ethic
about how we are together when we're together.
So just try to grab a lot of the things that I think about when I think about the work,
and put it in that list, and we can add ones that you have onto it.
But you could also use it as an opportunity to do training building off of this.
I think the idea of persons' first language is important.
And also just around language and about as culture evolves and as communities evolve,
people take on different language.
And our langue and use of terms will change, because the community is changing and asking us
to be respectful where they are in their evolutions.
So all those conversations about what you might hear, I think, are really important.
Eric, can we go to C?
>> I'm sorry, do what?
>> Does a second page come up too?
>> Yes. It does, and for those that are in Webex, what Jin has or what we have
on the screen is a handout which everyone will receive by email afterwards.
And so for those of you that are just on the phone, we apologize.
Jin is reading a document she is going to share with you that includes some of her thoughts
on that activity we just did with the hear, see, feel, and taste.
So we're on page two of it, which talks about seeing.
Sorry, Jin, go ahead.
>> Thanks for that clarification, Eric.
I'll get this down.
So even under the seeing, you know, I think-- I love the idea of the warmth and the embrace
and the diversity that sits in the room.
And I also think that we can bring into our spaces symbolism and artwork and other things
that reflect heifer cultures of the community and issues that reflect it.
So even something as simple as creating a bulletin board in the program
where the community is invited to advertise what's going on in the way
of validating the community and making it an extension of the community.
And anytime that you have, you know, another idea, please go ahead and use that chat feature.
And Eric is able to monitor it, but if you could get the drift of this activity is
to really get sort of a 360 view on this growing culturally welcoming
and validating programs look like.
I think sometimes we rely on training to get that message across to our staff and volunteers,
and sometimes I think it's just around a meal.
we can have a simple conversation, and the more people dream it.
The more people envision it, that can help them then go ahead and take the initiative
to start making that happen in the classroom.
I think I'm watching our time and got to move along, but I just--
I think that it's really hard to replicate something you've never experienced
or never imagined.
So there-- it's useful activity to spend some time talking and having a thorough conversation
about how it might really be as an experience.
Eric, thanks for putting that handout up, and we'll keep going on to marking the terrain.
>> Sorry, we're getting a little more background noise.
So I'm going to put it back into presentation mode.
>> Okay.
>> We'll open up the phones again in a little bit.
>> Presentation is now enabled.
>> Okay.
>> So in terms of marking the terrain, what I want to say is that all the efforts
that you're already putting forth to extend welcome
and to validate the students and their families is important.
And it kind of doesn't even matter where we begin.
It matters that we begin and we begin doing the work,
and then we commit to building off of that.
So I-- what I know is that from just experience,
that we approach it differently given our sensibilities about what the work is.
And onto slide 14, the next one, I tried to identify some of the key parts of the puzzle.
You know, what's the work?
If we're really going to do this, how does it happen?
And so I tired to tag for you at least ten areas of the work and to clarify that so
that as we begin to think about it.
And what I know is that some of us do what we do as staff very well,
and then some of the other areas need to shored up.
Or we're really good at creating a mission statement
and philosophy statement, and that's in place.
But we haven't really tweaked our physical environment.
The work requires all of really a systems approach and a more comprehensive approach.
You know, so it might be what your participants are experiencing in the programming.
And it might be-- so we call that curriculum, the intentional
and the unintentional curriculum.
But it's also everything else that's sending them messages.
So it maybe be that, you know, sitting in the programming looks pretty good.
But as we reflect on the staffing, it's not quite sending the same message
about all cultures and communities welcome here.
Or as we look at leadership in government, but there have been people across the world
that have been doing eth work and providing us examples.
I wanted to share with you one example of omission and visions work.
And so you'll notice that on parts of the puzzle, Eric,
can you port into that other handout?
So you'll get it, but what it is is many of you know the lyricist and musician, Raffi.
And he heads up the Troubadour Foundation in Canada.
And I came across this a couple years back, and this is his covenant for honoring children.
But if you read it I think it's really beautiful, and it's an example
of an organization, of a program that has spent some considerable time thinking
about its mission and its messaging and trying to clarify what its founding principles are
and what its beliefs are around children.
And I think that if you're in a program where you haven't spent much time working
on your mission or your vision around embracing the cultures of your community and the diversity
in your community, I think it's times well spent to craft a position statement.
Because I think a lot of people need to understand the why behind what you're doing,
and I wanted to provide you this one example so that you would have, you know this.
And if those of you out there have a mission statement
or a philosophy statement you think is really good, we would appreciate you sharing that so
that the rest of us on the call could benefit from it.
I think we don't need to start from square one.
There are lots of good examples out there, and if you take that and start reflecting that.
So what do I want to say, and what do we want to put forth so people; my staff, my community,
my board are clear on what our commitment is to cultural validations, appreciations, honoring.
It's there for everybody to see.
So I just wanted to include that sample.
Thanks, Eric.
>> And did you want to show the checklist we put together as well?
>> Go ahead.
Why don't you help me talk a little bit about that.
>> Sure, well, just taking the elements of organizational capacity or features
that we saw on the previous slide.
We just put those ten items on a document that will, we hope, allow you within your programs
to think about the ways in which your program is culturally welcoming, or not,
or has some work it needs to do to achieve it.
So if you're just-- if you're just on the phone what it is is just a one page word document set
up as a checklist that display the elements from slide 14 on a sheet and then offers some space
for you and your colleagues or managements to work together to think about ways
that you can make your program, or acknowledge ways that you already are culturally welcoming
but think about ways that you could make it even more so in different facets of your program.
>> Thanks, Eric.
Looking at our time, and we wanted to do a couple more things.
One is want to thank everyone who participated in this,
but also spend a little bit of time on questions.
Oh, Eric's put up the flag.
thanks for the reminder.
Hand in hand with the whole conversation about, you know, what's the check-off list.
What are the steps we need to take to build a comprehensive system
that supports welcoming students and families culturally?
For some of us, we relate to the kind of step-by-step process.
What I do know is that all of that is really founded in a set of principles.
It's not just a checklist, but there are some principles that guide the work.
And I'd like to, you know, facilitate developing a solid set of principles.
And I've offered up four of them, and so for facilitating, you know,
this inclusive environment or inclusive programming,
these are some of the things that came to my mind.
One that they need to be well-integrated across the organization.
Not just across the curriculum but the organization that if we are going
to be really solid in our advocacy that we not only need to understand, you know,
what the holidays, the heroes, the celebrations of those cultures.
But we also need to understand historically the mistreatment, the misinformation,
the stereotyping, and to be a true ally to be able to step up
and speak to some of that or all of it.
The other is to create the opportunities to have the community or the family or to be a resource.
That it's not about us just simply hosting these conversations or facilitating them,
but creating real partnership for the community so that the classroom
or the program comes in extension over the community.
And inviting authentic voices from yhe community.
So it's one thing to bring in one guess speaker, but It's atoner to have an ongoing relationship
with a community so that students have a rich understanding
of the diversity that lives within a community.
And, again, the stating the point that culture is definitely at this etnicity,
but it is also much more and how students show up, and how they identify themselves,
and how they relate with their different memberships is much broader
than ethnicity and race.
Thanks, Eric, for keeping that.
And to just thinking about, yes, it's about a step-by-step process.
Yes, it would include a plan.
Yes, it would be comprehensive about a system.
But then underneath all of that is also just a set of guiding principles
that get applied across everything that we do.
So I'm going to move to slide 17.
And then-- yea.
Is there any questions or comments?
Both, thank you.
You're looking at the clock tick, and, you know, here was another attempt at trying
to do some multicultural ways of saying thank you to you all and also create
and opportunity for you to add thank yous.
So that is a white board on the right side,
and if you'd like you can use your text annotation tool to add
to our list of ways to say thank.
>> Thanks, Jin, and I think we can go ahead and also start taking questions and comments,
which I believe we were planning to do.
>> Yea.
>> At this point, so I'm going to take the phone out of presentation mode,
and at this point we'll have an open floor.
And you can use the Webex raised hand or chat tool if you want.
Or you can just unmute your own phone and offer something up as well.
>> Presentation mode is not disabled.
>> Okay, so anyone have questions or comments?
Or anything else people would like to share?
Reflections or maybe experiences from the work of trying to make your program more inclusive
and make it more culturally validating?
>> Or even the challenges you've had in doing it, or what help.
>> Is there a particularly pulling example from your own experience, Jin,
that you'd like to share or some lessons learned?
And putting you on the spot a little bit, but--
or how maybe a client you've worked with where you helped them implement.
>> Yea. Well, for me the names on the list,
there's actually a couple people, I think, we've met before.
And that's really great to see.
I have for the last 14 years of my home state spent quite a bit of time working especially
with one of our tribal communities.
And the work that I was asked to come help do is all around creating alternative
to a life inflicted with substance abuse.
And really the parents invited me, and they're in recovery.
But it took us a while, and I feel like now we finally have a program
that really is a natural fit for who the families in the communities are.
So one of the programs that we developed is a program called CEDAR.
And it comes-- the name comes directly from something that's really important
to the culture and tradition of all the people.
So CEDAR stands for culture, education, drug-free, action, and responsibility.
And young people and elders come together, and they design the programming.
They build all of our programming along those chunks.
So, I mean, that's an example.
It took me a while to understand what would symbolically
as well as [inaudible] really sit in.
And some of the exciting things that we've done as the students
at our leadership camps not only teach [inaudible],
but they also talk about traditional leaders.
There's just a lot of different things that, I think, you get better and better at it.
If you listen what the community tells you,
what really fits well, who they are and what they need.
Eric, are we having-- I hear sounds happening here.
I wanted to make sure that we showcased our resources too if people don't have questions.
>> Sure, and we've gotten a couple of chat messages come in.
one that I think only I got from Robin Neeley [assumed spelling] and then one
that you might see from Jennifer Friglet [assumed spelling].
And actually I'd like to invite Robin and Jennifer, if you don't mind just
to go ahead before the rest of the folks just restate what you had typed in your chat message.
But while we let you unmute your phones, let's go slide 19,
which provides a list of selected resources.
Any you would like to describe in a bit more detail, Jin?
>> Lots of great web resources and I know many of you might have already been going to Teaching
for Change and lot of the publications.
And I thought of this too.
I thought especially of the work by Enid Lee in Beyond Heroes and Holidays.
I just think that lots of good stuff, The Multicultural Pavilion.
And a lot of really great things coming out of Oregon as well, but there are practitioners
who are out there that are willing to share good ideas
and be the sharing house for lots of great ideas.
So we'll some of the work from [inaudible] and other people, just sharing ideas that you--
a lot of folks whoare teachers that have moved over to mentoring programs
or youth programs or other kinds of programs.
But we identified three of the on the right,
and also from Norell [assumed spelling] itself we have quite a few resources
that you might be familiar with or not.
And I really encourage you to visit all six of those websites.
>> And actually you provided a nice longer and more comprehensive list of resources, Jin,
and we just had little bit of space on the side to put some here.
But we'll be emailing out to everyone a copy of the full list of resources.
And we're-- looks like we've reached our official end time for the webinar.
So, Jin, and myself are happy to stick around as long as people would
like to chat, or talk, or ask questions.
So I encourage you to stay on the line with us.
But we understand that people may need to go, and it looks like,
unfortunately, Robin might needed to have left.
I apologize for that.
So consider this the official end of our presentation.
The very last slide, slide 20, provides the contact information for us here at LEARNS.
Feel free to give us a call or email us at anytime.
As we said at the beginning, we're funded to provide assistance to programs
such as your own that are doing work with youth.
And so certainly we have resources we can offer, and we'd love to hear from you and hear
about the good work you're doing ,and see if there are ways that we could help.
So as your last official act, after we end our session,
and you close out of Webex you should be sent to an evaluation survey automatically.
But if not, I'll be sending it out.
I'll be sending out a link to the survey along with some additional resources afterwards.
So please do take a few moments to complete that survey.
As Jin said earlier, you know, we're doing two more webinars in this series.
>> And we want to make sure that it's on target and helpful to you and your colleagues.
But with that, thinks again for joining us and for the good work that you do
for our youth and for our communities.
>> Thank you.
>> And if you have time to sick around, we'd love to keep talking or take questions.
>> Am I off mute?
>> Yes, we can hear you.
>> Well, my question was we're having--
I work with the volunteers to work with the literacy programs for kids and adults.
And our volunteers generally come from a different background than the children
or the adults that they're tutoring.
And we're having a culturally diversity training in October, but a lot of times that people
who attend, you know, you mentioned this earlier.
The people who attend trainings to talk about cultural diversities are already aware
that it's something that we need to work on.
And how do we get people that don't necessarily think they need to come
to a cultural diversity training to come and learn and share?
>> Now, so your training isn't required for them to work with the youth they're assigned?
>> Nope. It's just an optional training.
>> Have you thought about making a requirement, Jennifer?
>> That's not logistically possible.
>> Oh, okay.
The other thing is, you know, what I have found when I have people who are maybe tentative
about attending a training is providing them incentive or including them in the agenda.
So asking them, you know, kind of sneaky way.
But it gets them into the room, or also ask them what's keeping them from coming to the training.
Sometimes it's a fear.
And, you know, if I can service that out and address the fear, that's another way.
But I try to provide incentives, or another way for a lot
of our volunteer programs I've been successful with is providing kind of a fun incentive
that say, everybody who attends the training and gets there on time is entered into a raffle.
And we've got, you know, something that some local businesses gifted us.
But sometimes you just have to get them into the room,
and once they're into the room we can keep them engaged.
And we can keep them feeling themselves safe.
I think people who don't attend it, we need to express to them how critical the training is
to prepare them to work well with their students.
I would also encourage you to use some volunteers to give testimonies to some
of the things they've applied in terms of their learning working
with culturally different students or young people.
So those are the things that I can think of like provide incentives.
Explain how important it is.
Get their peers to pitch to them.
Create an opportunity for them to contribute during the agenda so that it's just not
about them receiving, but they're going to be helping something happen.
Those are the things that come to my mind, and then really if you can't do it, you know,
programmatically; having other people just express how important it is especially
when you're preparing to be the helpmate of someone who's culturally different.
You know, why that's important and what a difference it makes
when you have more information about how to truly help them and how to really--
what's the best way to meet them where they are.
Is that helpful?
>> Yea, it is.
Thank you.
>> Sure.
>> I see we have some, a collective arts work.
>> Yea, it's really cool.
>> Okay, we've gotten some comments and feedback that have come in on chat,
so thanks for all of you that provided those.
Is Robin still with is, or did you have to leave already, Robin?
Okay. Looks like we've missed Robin.
Anyone else like to share anything or have a question?
And if you think of something afterwards, or something comes up later on,
you certainly feel free to give us a call or email here at LEARNS.
And if we have something available on hand we can pass along, we will.
Or if you have a question for Jin, I can pass that along as well, or ideas for you us well.
So not seeing or hearing any additional questions,
I think maybe we'll go ahead and wind down.
So any final--
>> Thanks everyone.
>> Okay, okay.
>> Thank you.
>> This is Angie, and I think I finally accomplished getting on.
Can you guys see me there?
>> Yea, we saw you pop on, and we were very happy to see you appear.
>> Hopefully It'll be sooner next time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
>> Okay.
>> Bye.
>> Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday.
And, Jin?
>> Yes.
>> Do you have something right now after this session?
>> No. Can we spend a little time just debriefing?
>> Sure. Why don't we hang up and call you back in a couple minutes.
>> Sure.
>> Cell phone or your home phone?
>> Home phone.
>> Home phone, okay.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Bye.