At center stage was the theme of supporting Bellevue’s kids through community engagement and building better relationships with parents and families at the Eastside Pathways All-Partner Meeting on Jan 29 at the Jubilee REACH Center.
The meeting was held in a Community Café style and hosted by Robin Higa and Alicia Luna from the Community Café Collaborative of Washington.
Higa explained that the Community Café approach is designed to build partnerships with families and community in order to promote optimal child development. The conversations often use the World Café structure, a democratic process in which each person has an opportunity to participate and contribute.
“It also differs from a typical meeting in that there is no facilitator with a predetermined result that they are requiring of the group or a predetermined solution to a problem that they are trying to convince the group of adopting,” Higa said. “Community gatherings are designed to allow the work that needs to get done to emerge, giving the group an opportunity to determine their own outcome.”
Helena Stephens, manager of Teen Services for the City of Bellevue said that she found the Community Café model to be a unique approach to creating relationships and sharing knowledge with new people.
“A sense of community is quickly created in the limited session while giving everyone a voice. Since our topic was on a variety of issues facing parents and families, the Community Café allowed individuals to talk about the work they were doing to build relationships,” Stephens said.
Stephens explained that parents and families struggle with giving their children every opportunity for success and she thought that the model created bridges to new information to help parents with that struggle.
Higa explained that especially in a community like Bellevue, where significant changes in the community demographics are happening over a relatively short period of time, it becomes more critical to bring diverse perspectives into the same room together to talk about important issues.
Cathy MacCaul, director of community engagement at Within Reach and a new partner of Eastside Pathways, explained that often people involved in serving and meeting community needs get so involved with day-to-day operations that it is difficult to take the time to connect with others with a shared vision and mission.
“Those connections strengthen relationships and make us more effective in doing this important work,” she said.
Stephanie Cherrington, director of Eastside Pathways, agreed and said that this is the time for organizations, interested parents, business people, funders and community members to work together.
“We know that engaging families and parents can be challenging for many organizations and we believe that this model is a great way to start building those important relationships,” Cherrington said.
Michelle Williams Clark, education specialist at Bellevue Family YMCA, said she would like to use the model to develop Youth Community Cafes and get Youth Facilitators trained to host youth groups.
“What I liked most about the meeting was the small group connection and the ease of conversation, especially the focus on listening,” she said. “I think that using the Community Café model is a good way to build relationships with parents and families because it will allow everyone’s voice to be heard.”
Article written by Charlotte Anthony