Part two OST with Aboriginal families

[Chris Corrigan]

Colleagues:

Ran the second of three public legal information workshops today on
issues relating to Aboriginal children and families in Vancouver (see
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/vacfss1.html for a report on the first
one).  This time we were focussing on family support services for
families who have either had their kids apprehended by the provincial
government or are trying to prevent the same.

We used the same format as the first workshop:

Opened with a prayer for our Elder
1.    Transfer in exercise
2.    Presentations on family support legislation and practice
3.    Lunch
4.    Open Space on designing better supports for our families
Closed with a prayer

The transfer in exercise went like this:

   * All participants in a circle: no introductions
   * Facilitator asks folks to think of an animal
   * Think quietly for a moment about what that animal is telling you
     about "family support"
   * Share you thoughts with one or two others.  introduce yourselves
     and talk to each other for ten minutes.
   * Facilitator then invites catch words or phrases that have arisen
     and writes them on a flip chart.

The purpose of the transfer in exercise is to get the whole brain into
the room, get folks centered on the task at hand and get some meaningful
introductions.

We had 45 people (social workers, parents, grandparents, advocates,
kids) in the OST portion of the meeting and 15 issues came forward.  One
issue was proposed by a young woman who couldn't read or write on her
own,  She lay on the floor with a friend telling her which letter came
next and reminding her of the shapes.  She painstakingly wrote out her
issue.  If she made a mistake in one letter, she crossed out the whole
word and started over.  It took her about ten minutes and when she was
finally done, she stood up with a big smile on her face, said her name,
announced her issue and put it on the wall.  Don't ever let anyone tell
you that this process is too intimidating for shy or illiterate people.
Passion conquers fear in this case.

In a related story, an impromptu session occurred during the afternoon
on sexual abuse.  A woman who was too scared(? shy? nervous?  -- I don't
really know) to propose an issue to the whole group (because it dealt
with abuse she had suffered) waited until the small groups were
underway, found a woman who seemed open to listening, and proposed a
session on sexual abuse.  The two of them met for 30 minutes, filled out
a report form and her piece was said. Appropriate structure.

This was a consultation OST, so we did not do convergence and the givens
around the information was that ideas that are raised will be used by
the agencies that are present to improve services wherever possible.
There was no expectation that our discussion would have any effect on
how government delivers services.  And there was no commitment that
things WOULD change as a result of the sessions.  We were after ideas.
As a result, the meeting became a powerful articulation of the potential
of our community.  In summing up, it was noted that "we are the
community, and what we have done was to take control and power and
responsibility for the state of our community."  A couple of people took
up the ball and committed to finding a way for all of our agencies to
come together to do a big OST meeting with no involvement from
government around these issues...like a REALLY big meetings, with dozens
of agencies, hundreds of workers and clients and two days of OST.  It
may yet happen.

i think for those of us who are "community developers" OST provides the
first real genuine development tool.  instead of delivering tools and
expertise to a community, we use OST and simply hold the space for the
community to empower itself, take responsibility and do it's own
development.  It sounds so obvious, but it is a real "AH HA!" for
people.  "You mean this is about us?  We only have ourselves to look
to?"  It has always been so.  I think some community development efforts
I have seen are as destructive and disempowering as the government
interventions they seek to replace.  It's time to get out of the way and
let people design their own futures.  The most we can do is hold the
space.  The least we can do is hold the space.

Our Elder, in the closing, said she was proud of us.  Said we should be
proud of ourselves and be proud to be Native people dedicating ourselves
to the welfare of our children.  She said we HAVE to use the circle
more, we need these processes back in our communities, for the healing
and for the power.

Chris

--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com

108-1035 Pacific Street
Vancouver BC
V6E 4G7

Phone: 604.683.3080
Fax: 604.683.3036
corcom at interchange.ubc.ca

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20010112/09376645/attachment-0009.htm>