An Unfolding Story of Shared Leadership

Several weeks ago, I posted a reflection about the first of several meetings to be held between the government and community partners who are working to birth an unprecendented collaboration. Depending which chair you sit in, we  refer to the project as the Neighbors Campaign or the Neighborhood Safety Net Center Initiative (note: use of two names indicates that we still have work to do, right?)

Last Thursday, we held the second meeting in this current round of joint planning and as Uma Ahluwalia said “This meeting was like a real lovefest” and her lead staff member, Betty Lam declared, “I feel like we are building a better relationship with each other.” Of course, for us IMPACT folks in the room, Betty used the magic words – building relationships. Her acknowledgement are the moments we live for at IMPACT. Thank you Betty. (For new readers, take note that this room is made up of long time social workers and long time community organizers – coming from very different perspectives and ways of being).

For those of you who tire of our focus on relationships, we want you to know how productive we were in our two hour meeting.  Here’s a quick summary, below. Following the summary is a picture of the team and a quick video clip. We apologize in advance for continued audio difficulties. We will enlist the services of a newer,better Flip camera next time. We also want to acknowledge that all participants in this meeting understand that many others need to be involved in the continued joint visioning and these meetings are a sparking force for these conversations and not a conclusion or final answer.

Outcomes of our second meeting:

1. As agreed to at our last meeting, Winta Teferi of IMPACT  presented a two page outline of our emerging vision for Neighbor Corps, a cohort of resident leaders and community partners who commit to spending three months together in a learning community – as they also knock on doors and help implement the campaign.
2. The stated purpose of Neighbor Corps – as presented by Winta – is: To develop a neighborhood-based leadership development and collaborative action program (in our three targeted neighborhoods) that will increase the ability of 60-80 people from a range of backgrounds and cultures to develop relationships of trust and use their new network to better connect low income residents to available social services and to spark circles of mutual support.
3. After hearing from Winta, the team asked clarifying questions, talked about various strategies and timing issues – but overall agreed that the plan presented represented the vision crafted at the previous meeting. See outline attached. Of course, there are many people who need to see and comment on this proposal – but it is a start to have key components on paper.  Draft Proposal for Neighbor Corps – 23
4. Kate Garvey of HHS then proposed that we use the last hour of our meeting to take on a new topic area – ideas for improving the Neighborhood Safety Net Center environment – in terms of continuing to our shared goal of creating centers that are welcoming, inclusive and facilitate new connections of support.
5. After some back and forth regarding how to manage the realities of our exsiting centers and partners, Uma convinced us all to step back and build a vision – even if the vision cannot be fully achieved in the short term.  We crafted the following list of specific changes needed to achieve an effective commuinty-based Neighborhood Center:

• Host multicultural food days: Pupusas, Asian food, inside or in food trucks outside
• Various classes, seminars an and trainings
  • Cooking healthy
  • Diabetes education
  • Exercise club run by Lesly
  • Support groups (jobs, mothers, marriage, etc…)
• Non traditional hours
• Celebrations (new jobs, successful access to services….)
• Different groups use the space for fun activities or meetings
• Tea, coffee, water refreshments
• Vending machine
• Separate childcare area with great games and well-organized activities
• Comfortable couches and hang out area
• Magazines, newspapers
• Well managed flyer rack
• TVs with tutorials on how to get help and information on different programs, resources etc…
• Music!
• Community resource exchange bulletin board (2 way information exchange)
• Internet access
• Family evenings with homework club for kids while parents watch a movie
• Active, friendly volunteers greeting people …. helping people open Gmail accounts and use the computers

Social Workers and Community Organizers - TOGETHER!

Government Office or Neighborhood Center?

Change is slow, except when it is fast. Tom Hayden

After several more rounds of knocking on doors and hearing stories of families who do not know about or do not feel comfortable accessing government services, I am coming to the conclusion that the gap between people and services is even larger than many of us assumed. It is clear that we need to invest even more time reaching out and engaging people right where they live.  For example, a group of door knockers agreed yesterday that we need to now hold a free picnic on the grassy green area in the middle of a large apartment complex next weekend, one day before our scheduled Neighbors Exchange at the elementary school right down the road.

Another question I wrestle with is how to make sure the Neighborhood Service Centers feel comfortable and different from the experience many have encountered when they first approach a government office. We have to ensure that when those first few folks venture out of the safety of their homes and enter this new center, that their experience is very positive…so that they come back and encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

I believe one key component to ensuring that the Neighborhood Service Centers feel different and welcoming is to make sure the Community Connectors  who staff these centers feel empowered, celebrated and supported in shaping the environment.  We’ve made a big leap to envision a new role called Community Connectors and we’ve gone to great lengths to fill these positions with culturally competent and dedicated people from the neighborhood.  We now need to give them the freedom and the power – in shared leadership with project managers and emerging resident leaders – to be creative and take the risks needed to build a human bridge across this huge cultural gap in our community.  In my opinion, this step is the single most important strategy if we are to be successful in creating Neighborhood Service Centers that are not simply sattelite government offices.

Realizing Goal 3

At IMPACT, we often refer to our “goal three” and wistfully talk about how hard it is to achieve.  Goal three – in simple terms – is the process of bringing people together who hold different degrees of positional power and helping them share their personal power to achieve positive change around areas of common concern. One dream of ours is to bring together landlords and tenants – who have dramatically different degrees of positional power – to work to build better apartment communities. We are making progress on this front, but have a long way to go.

BUT, this past weekend – without even full awareness or complete prior design – we made huge progress in bringing together professional social workers and social service “clients” to work as peers who very much need each other as they try to open innovative neighborhood-based emergency service centers in neighborhoods.  With the simple, but careful, use of storytelling, I observed new bridges of understanding and trust being built before my very own eyes – between people who might be working towards the same end but are coming from very different orientations and perspectives, and certainly coming together across extreme diversity.

We have a long ways to go before I feel like we’ve made substantial progress towards our “goal three” in this arena, but I have certainly learned a lot about being ready to take the tools of community building on the road and using them in “moments ripe for change,”  which often present themselves when you least expect them.

A Successful Training!

Our Community Connector training was held at Family Services, Inc, the lead nonprofit host for the Neighborhood Safety Net Center in Gaithersburg. (Thanks to Tom Harr, Director of Family Services, and staff for being gracious hosts). A particularly powerful aspect of the session was the story sharing session led by Winta and Megan of IMPACT on Friday morning where each person – regardless of their potential role in this project – was asked to share a specific response to the following two questions:

• What specific gifts do you bring to your role in the Neighbors Campaign?
• Share a time when someone supported you through a very difficult moment in your life.

In reflecting about the session afterwards, several participants commented on how transformative this simple moment was in terms of shattering certain assumptions about others in the room, and understanding the shared goal of helping neighbors come together to be stronger, even during tough times.

Community Connector Training

In many ways, Friday was the true official kick-off of the Neighbors Campaign.  Eleven community residents of extremely different backgrounds from Silver Spring, Wheaton and Gaithersburg ventured forth to begin a two-day session in preparation for their possible role as a Community Connector – in many ways the single most important lynchpin to this entire effort. They will staff the new Neighborhood Safety Net Centers on a daily basis. These connectors will serve as a human bridge to the residents in the targeted neighborhoods who either do not know about available services, or are afraid to go to a large government center, or give up when they encounter the many forms and questions asked in order to secure help.

Most of these courageous folks who have stepped forward have direct experience accessing social services at some point in their lives and have many stories to tell about the reasons why they and their neighbors might not venture forth to apply for HHS support. This first group of potential Connectors includes immigrants from Central America, East Africa, West Africa, Asia, the Middle East and long time African American residents, and represent a wide range of ages and educational/work backgrounds. Almost all are renters and live in apartment complexes located in an area of high need in the County.