ISCOPES Guardian Engagement Learning Community, 2017-18 By: Abena Amoakuh, Paige Beck, Selene Brambl, Alex Fraser, Sam Gross, Kera Johnson, Iman Karnabi, Vivi Mani, and Cate Rothenberg
Introduction
Projects: What We Did and How We Did It
Recommendations 1. Be Flexible: Sometimes plans change the day of implementation due to weather, lack of resources, etc. It’s important to be flexible and adapt to the situation when things do not go according to plan.
Welcome to the Guardian Engagement Learning Community!
2. Stay Positive: Sometimes ISCOPES can seem overwhelming; it involves a firm time commitment! Stay positive and continue to encourage each other to remain engaged, especially during midterms and finals.
This year, we had the privilege to work with two sites in Ward 8 of DC: Southeast Children’s Fund (SCF) and the Barry Farm Housing Community, in partnership with A Wider Circle.
3. Team Bonding: An effective team is a happy team. Try to plan activities together outside of ISCOPES. Get to know each other and let friendships blossom!
4. Use Your Strengths: Everyone has something different to contribute. Figure out everyone’s strengths and weaknesses early on, and use them to your team’s benefit.
5. Take Turns: Practice sharing responsibilities, delegating work, and trusting others to
Southeast Children’s Fund is a non-profit, early childhood development center. They provide care and education for children ages 6 months to 3 years of age. A Wider Circle works with the residents in Barry Farm as a support system, through professional development and education, and through the development of a safer and livelier neighborhood.
step up and take on leadership roles.
What We Learned Our implementations involved encouraging habits that promote healthy lifestyles at a young age and as adults
I.
One of the most important things that we learned as a team was about the affordable housing crisis in DC, particularly in Southeast DC, where our site visits were located. We learned a lot about the lack of stability that residents of Barry Farm have with housing and how many of them are being pushed out of their homes for redevelopment purposes. Even with talks of Barry Farm being developed into a mixed-income community, many residents fear losing their homes permanently. This has resulted in a lawsuit against the D.C. Housing Authority in hopes to halt the redevelopment efforts until they are promised enough housing for current and former tenants of Barry Farm and to prevent displacement of hundreds of Ward 8 residents.
II.
Differences in values, communication styles, motivations, perceived responsibilities, power dynamics, levels of commitment, environmental circumstances, and personal/professional cultures can easily hinder effective teamwork. In order to effectively work together, we had to be open minded with differing ideas, commitment levels, and allowing different people to take the lead in different circumstances. By working through these challenges, we were able to learn to work together as a team rather than as a group of individuals working separately to similar goals.
III.
We learned a lot about working with others with differing communications skills (True Colors Test) which allowed us to learn how to best communicate with others based on those skills. Learning how to do this will be invaluable to us in the workplace because it has taught us how to work with others more effectively in order to get the best results and better fulfill our goals. Interacting with different personalities will not end with ISCOPES; we will always have to do it and thankfully, we can put these skills to good use in our future careers.
❖ We focused on the health and wellbeing of the whole child and family,
which meant including diverse health topics such as stress management, nutrition, environmental health, parenting tips for dealing with difficult behavior, and preventing the spread of diseases like the flu.
Why We Serve More than 1 out of 4 children in Washington, DC are food insecure, with most of those children living east of the Anacostia River. Our team aim was to be a resource to guardians and their children to address how their families can include nutrient rich foods in their diets within budget. As we immersed ourselves into the communities we served, we wanted to learn more about the systemic issues affecting the population’s health. In particular, we learned that residents of Barry Farm have been subjected to injustices with historical roots. Our aim evolved to include acting as advocates with our clients as partners. Whether through policy, epidemiology, or maternal and child health, members of the community with whom we engaged helped us learn more about how we can affect change through our respective public health lenses.
❖ We spent a lot of time discussing and emphasizing nutrition by bringing
in healthy snacks, such as broccoli and tangerines, for the kids to munch on. Many of the planned snacks involved one familiar item along with an unfamiliar one to encourage the children to try new foods.
❖ We planned fun and engaging activities, like handwashing songs, crafts, and exercises, to encourage healthy behaviors while also trying to keep the children’s attention.
❖ We also focused on building healthy habits among parents and guardians so that the children could learn by example.
❖ One of our most successful events at both sites involved guardians
having their blood pressure measured by nursing students and having conversations about hypertension prevention and treatment.
What we hope we left with Barry Farm and SCF... As a team, we were able to make an impact on the lives of the children and the guardians with whom we worked. While direct contact with guardians was often limited, those who did engage with us were interested and excited to learn about the topics we were focusing on during any given week. We were able to get adults and children to step out of their comfort zones and try new foods - even though not everything was always a hit. From our observations, we saw increased engagement with the guardians during site visits, particularly at Southeast Children’s Fund. Parents’ and guardians’ demeanors toward our team became more positive as the months progressed which allowed for higher levels of engagement with them. Similarly, teachers and students became more comfortable with us, and allowed us to eventually facilitate our own classroom activities. We felt like we became a welcome part of the community.
KUDOS! We would like to acknowledge Angie and Besen along with the rest of the ISCOPES Leadership Team for providing our team with exceptional guidance and support over the past 9 months. The nursing students were valuable members of our team and allowed us to implement more prevention-based activities. We would also like to thank Barry Farm and Southeast Children’s Fund for welcoming us into their communities and allowing us the opportunity to both serve and learn from them. We would like to personally thank Misty from Barry Farm and Ms. Walker and Ms. Debra from SCF for their years of commitment and service to their respective communities and for their invaluable help with coordinating our program activities.