Finding ServiceLearning

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TUTORIAL 3

• Finding Service-Learning
• Community Partners

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Tutorial Goals

• At the end of this tutorial, you will have an
• understanding of
• Criteria involved in choosing community
• partners
• General tips in maintaining relationships
• with your community partners

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Tutorial Objectives

• At the end of this tutorial you will be able to
• Choose criteria most important for your course
• Identify potential community partners for your
  course

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Thinking about sending your students to
• any community is like picking any text
• for your course
• Important and thoughtful process of course
• preparation
• Important for faculty involvement in site
• planning

Howard, 2001
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Criteria for finding (and maintaining) Community
Partners

• Placement Match (course and mission)
• Meet needs to Empower Community
• Objective-related
• Time Commitments
• Based on Understanding and Trust
• Orientation
• Materials within these slides are adapted from
  various references found at the end of this
  presentation

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Supervision
• Training of Students
• Communication with Site
• Relationship Building
• Follow-up with Site
• Materials within these slides are adapted from
  various references found at the end of this
  presentation

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Placement Match
• To match course content
• Ex class on nursing could be placed at a
  homeless shelter but would be better placed at a
  health clinic
• To match university and department mission
• Be careful with any conflict of interest for
  values
• Ex medical students working with an abortion
  clinic or with a program doing research on fetal
  tissue

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Meet needs to Empower community
• You are not there to serve the community
• Rather you want to enhance their strengths and
• help them to fulfill their needs by working with
• them on how to improve their communities
• Work with community to identity needs

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Meet needs to Empower community
• Empower community members to work within
• and become their own resources
• Conduct a needs/strengths assessment
• Find out in advance how your class can enhance
• the community

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Objective-related Criteria
• Course content objectives
• Filing papers at a daycare, while doing service
  does little to help students experience the
  hands-on responsibilities of child education
  practices
• Site needs to have complimentary interests and
• resources to make a match for course
• If you are to work with community to enhance
  strengths (meet needs), they have to have some
  potential resources and/or interests to carry out
  initiatives

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Objective-related Criteria
• Civic engagement objectives
• If you want students to be advocates for public
  policies of unfair labor wages, visiting one
  plant for just one hour in a semester will not be
  sufficient
• They need longer, more immersed experiences with
  the people in the community with the workers,
  families, various organizations, labor unions

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Time Commitments
• What can you get accomplished in your semester?
• Is your project something you can combine with
• another semesters or instructors class?
• Piggy Back method
• How many meetings or hours will you need to
  accomplish your objectives?

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Time Commitments
• What is the weather for your project or does it
• matter?
• Ex building a swing set in the park for a
  neighborhood collecting ground water samples,
  being inside or outsidewill you have to be
  weather-dependent?
• Ex when working with an elder population,
  visits per semester may work better than
  mandating x number of hours per week

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Based on Understanding and Trust
• Faculty need to also work with sites so the site
• partner understands the nature of service-
• learning and the course
• Partners needs to trust each other that the
• assignments will be carried out on both ends
• Faculty members need to know that students will
• have guidance and leadership at the site

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Orientation
• Prepare students for the experience of service-
• learning
• Prepare students for the population
• Make sure students understand the mission of
• the site prior to working with the community
• Cover liability issues with students (i.e.,
  travel
• accidents)

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Training of students
• How many hours of training will students need at
• the site, if any?
• Is training completed by service site
  supervisor/director?
• Find out if students need background check
• Who pays, what clearance level is
• Particularly important if working with young or
  elder population

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Supervision
• Can students be on their own or do they need
• supervision?
• Can they be with community members on their own?
• Sometimes with children a supervisor/teacher must
  be on site at all times
• Sometimes with elderly, students cannot be in
  someones apartment but can be in a commons
  area (HUD regulations) depends upon facility

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Communication with site
• Keep consistent communication with site during
  the project
• Open lines of feedback and assess during the
• project in order to make changes as necessary
• As faculty, visit site on occasion to see
  first-hand what students are doing and to visit
  with supervisor

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Relationship building
• As faculty, you should be personally invested in
• the service project and the community in which
• you are partnering
• View the relationship as reciprocal and keep ties
• with your community partners

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Relationship building
• Celebrate the successes at the end of the
  semester
• Invite community to campus
• Equally share in the success of the project

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Follow-up with site
• Conduct a post-assessment with your partners
• Find out what went well during the semester
• What could be improved upon for the next project?
• Take the time to visit with community members
• if possible (not only supervisor/director)

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Finding service-learning community partners

• Follow-up with site
• Any opportunities to collaborate with other
• courses/instructors for a different project?
• Encourage your students to continue to visit the
  site on their own time to keep the relationship
• with the community partners

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Final thoughts

• Overall
• Building effective community partnerships take
  time
• Keep open lines of communication
• Be patient
• Enjoy the mutual benefits
• Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and you are ready
  to go out and find your community partners

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References

• Conville, R. L., Weintraub, S. C. (2002).
  Service-learning and
• communication A disciplinary toolkit.
  Washington, DC National
• Communication Association.
• Gelman, S., B. Holland, B. A., Driscoll, A.,
  Srping, A., Kerrigan, S.
• (2001). Assessing service-learning and
  civic engagement
• Principles and techniques. Providence, RI
  Campus Compact.
• Heffernan, K. (Ed.), (2001). Fundamentals of
  service-learning course
• construction. Providence, RI Campus
  Compact.
• Sandy, M., Holland, B. (2006) Different worlds
  and common ground
• Community partner perspectives on
  campus-community
• partnerships. Michigan Journal of Community
  Service Learning,
• 3043.
• Sandy, M. (2007) Community voices A California
  campus compact study on partnerships. San
  Francisco California Campus Compact.

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