Effective Practices: Navigating Current Events
Gleaning from our experience working with small schools and organizations for nearly five years as a group and decades as individuals, we have created a series of documents on Effective Practices that we are excited to offer to our clients.
Each document is focused on a key theme or area that clients often have questions about or need support to improve. Our intention with the Effective Practice documents is to offer maps for our clients and share resources that can serve a wide range of small schools and types of organizations. We intend for these resources to support unique inquiries and journeys while addressing common themes, as communities widen to become more inclusive, equitable, diverse, and just.
Today, we warmly share the next in our Effective Practices series,:Navigating Current Events. This document focuses on strategies, questions, and important aspects to consider when unexpected and/or highly emotional events happen in the world.
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In a world where wars, other tragedies, and a deeply polarized political landscape inevitably touch everyone, it is imperative that institutional leadership has clarity about their approach to navigating challenging conversations. An institution’s approach will be most effective when its actions are rooted in its vision, mission, and values. Below, we outline some effective practices, resources, and questions to ask as your organization navigates discussions of current events.
General Considerations
Align any approach to talking about current events with vision, mission, and values.
In decisions and programming, directly explain how the vision, mission and values of the organization connect to how and why you are addressing the current event.
In discussions, have community aspirations in place and use them consistently. Tie these agreements to vision, mission, and values.
Remember that the way that your organization holds a container for conversations provides a model to your stakeholders about what respectful discourse looks like.
Find ways to decrease teacher workloads and postpone non-urgent tasks when teachers are responding to current events and holding space for big emotions in the classrooms; give them time to breathe and recognize the extra labor inherent in helping students and families work through strong feelings.
Let experts in your community lead. This might include Student Support staff, your School Counselor, or parents/caregivers/Board members who work in the mental health field, or are experts on the issues in the news.
For schools: Support students in processing current events
Maintain a protected space for students
Notice the kinds of discourse and language happening in conversations about current events, and watch for language of othering. Ensure that discussions are developmentally appropriate. Model and encourage age-appropriate, informed, empathetic discussion.
Offer opportunities for restorative practices, which can include time in nature, spaces for relaxation, and moments for arts expression.
Create opportunities for students to safely discuss differences in opinion in low-stakes situations first, before discussing differences in high-stakes situations.
Bring in outside speakers, such as The Civility Project.
Support the entire community to hold intentional space
Consider planning for gatherings after an impactful event
Some useful questions to discern if this is a good idea:
Is this an event that will require substantial amounts of emotional processing and co-regulating as a community?
Will a gathering lead to a greater sense of connection and grounding among the community?
Policy
Provide clarity to community members about appropriate venues for politically sensitive conversations. (Ex. Emphasizing communicating in person vs. on public forums or email chains)
Consider the impacts of schoolwide/organization-wide communication platforms where people might get into divisive conversations without a responsible container (Ex. Turn off comments on social media channels or platforms like Parent Square).
Remind community members about abiding by agreed-upon community aspirations and organizational policies in their conversations.
Questions to ask about policy
What kinds of policies should we have in place to protect our institution while living out our mission?
What do your organization’s statements say about the world you are working toward, how you interact as a community, or how you relate to the larger community/society?
The full document (available only to current clients) includes more effective practices and a list of accompanying resources. If you’re a current client and don’t have access to this document, please write to us at connect@almapartners.net for a copy. We also offer 1-hour consulting sessions to go deeper on the content of this document. If you’re not a client yet,book an introductory call with us to learn more!
