Colleagues: On Friday I had the opportunity to open space in a community setting around the very emotional issues of what can be done to support Aboriginal families who are in the process of being investigated and having their children removed by the provincial Ministry for Children and Families.
The meeting was the first of three public legal education workshops sponsored by Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services. The day was a mix of information sharing and discussion in open space. The process was designed to maximize learning, discussion and to provide support for those who needed it. in attendance were 45 members of the community in Vancouver. Some people were agency representatives and others were parents who had been involved with the Ministry either through the apprehension of the own children or because they were raised in the foster system themselves. There is a huge amount of contention in our community about child apprehension. One the one hand, the rights and safety of children are paramount, but the other hand is full of an atrocious history of government social workers taking children away from their families and communities without any support for either the children or the families. The morning of our workshops was spent in a circle, with a lawyer and Ministry representatives sharing the legal and practice issues around investigations and removals of children. The circle helped to bring a measure of respect and thoughtfulness to the morning. We warmed up with a "transfer in" exercise (students of Birgitt will be familiar with this) which served to centre everyone's thoughts on the issue at hand, and provided a means for people to introduce themselves to folks they had never met. In the afternoon the space was opened for further elaboration on the topic of "less disruptive measures" and other ways of supporting families in crises. The process worked well. There were 11 groups formed. Some of those groups were convened by people who were in a deep state of grieving, while others were convened by folks who wanted to address the policy and networking opportunities presented by the theme. In retrospect, we could not have created a safer space for those who needed to grieve. Those three or four sessions allowed folks the opportunity to discuss their pain, and others who participated were able to give them some comfort and help them through their experience. It was support in a very real way. The other groups beavered away on their work, and I was glad that they were able to use the time and space to do what they needed to do without being distracted by the very real concerns of the participants in grief. We had a short time frame, so I people met in two periods of 45 minutes. The closing circle was powerful, as usual, with on woman -- a strong advocate -- admitting that prior to the meeting she had thought of all social workers as the enemy, but that now she was prepared to not tar them all with the smae brush. Many other people commented on how the process let them speak about what was on their mind, even though they were traditionally the shy and retiring types. Combining OST with the "information sharing" process in the morning brought a really organic feel to the day. It was exhaling stale air (the legislation, the practice standards, the past) and inhaling new life (the healing, the ideas, the empowerment). We have two more workshops planned, and I won't tinker with the process much. Chris -- CHRIS CORRIGAN Consultation - Facilitation Open Space Technology http://www.geocities.com/chris_corrigan 108-1035 Pacific Street Vancouver BC V6E 4G7 Phone: 604.683.3080 Fax: 604.683.3036 [email protected] * * ========================================================== [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected] Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html =========================================================== [email protected] To subscribe, 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign up -- provide an email address, and choose a login ID and password 3. Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions To unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign in and Proceed
