café for schools
Are you a teacher, school leader or teacher educator working to capitalize on the diverse strengths of the greater community? Are you looking for unique opportunities and ideas to engage parents, citizens, local businesses and organizations as partners in education?
In sharing “what’s working in community engagement,” along with developments in educational research and capacity building, Café supports the efforts of extended school communities to be purposeful about community building. An asset-based approach begins with seeing the school community full of strengths, gifts and possibilities. This orientation becomes an opportunity to highlight and engage untapped assets and resources, and examine all possibilities for collaboration and partnerships. Is your cup half full? See Café’s School Asset-Deficit Map
Research reinforces the positive benefits for the learner when families and communities are given the opportunity to work in partnership with schools. Recognizing that schools are institutions within their own larger systems, each school is also an extended community unto itself, with great potential to be an integral part of the wider community. Café shares with educators quality resources (both virtually and in-person) available to help parent leaders, teachers and school administrators and the broader community adopt an “asset-based leadership in education (ABLE)” lens for exploring the unlimited pathways for maximizing learning opportunities.
Rationale and Research
Café is encouraged by the growing body of research in education that now aligns with the strength-based, capacity building orientation of community development. A growing number of professional bodies are dedicating time and resources to finding ways to bring this knowledge into practice:
find out more...Assets in Action
What does asset-building look like in a school community? Focusing on strengths, possibilities and the potential gifts of the extended community can highlight a school’s unique pathway to learning.
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Sharing Successes
There are countless examples of schools effectively engaging parents and the extended community. Sharing these experiences offers an opportunity for all schools to join the conversation. What’s working and why?
find out more...resources for schools
Café provides a space to share quality resources and ideas for engaging families and the broader community in supporting a child’s learning.
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