Transcript: Session 2B: The Art of Participatory Leadership

Laura Buckner:

So again, we’re very, very happy to have you all here today for our session on the Art of Participatory Leadership. My name is Laura Buckner. I’m the moderator for this session today. I serve as a technical assistance provider for the California Center for School Climate, and I’m also a program associate with WestEd’s Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities content area. Before we get started, I just want to share a very quick note about the California Center for School Climate. It is a California Department of Education Initiative led by WestEd. We provide free support and trainings on school climate and data use to local education agencies in California, and we invite you to visit our website to learn more about the supports that the center provides to districts and schools across the state.

So moving into our session today, our keynote speaker this morning talked about belonging and as we move into this session, what a powerful stance participatory leadership is on that idea. Inviting others to step into leadership and take an active role in really shaping what happens in schools and really shaping their own experiences in them, it sends such a powerful message about who belongs and how they belong in these environments. And also fostering the relationships that share power and decision-making can really go a long way towards the healing that Dr. Portia Moore discussed and it really needs to happen in our education system. So I’m very, very excited to introduce our speakers today. We have Amber Valdez. She’s a senior program associate with WestEd’s Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities team, where she leads a body of work on systems change, organizational development and leadership.

Amber has worked with several mission-driven public and private sector organizations on leading, designing and transforming complex systems for equity, and she brings expertise in transformational leadership, systems thinking, continuous improvement, human centered and liberatory design and participatory approaches to change. And Lan Nguyen is a technical assistance provider for the California Center for School Climate and a program associate with WestEd’s Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities team as well. She’s held diverse roles in K through 12 schools and districts, including providing professional development and technical assistance to school and districts around LGBTQ+ issues in education and has expertise in restorative practices and transformational leadership. And with that, I’m thrilled to pass it to Lan.

Lan Nguyen:

Thanks so much, Laura, for that introduction. Really appreciate it. And thank you to all of you for being here today with us and spending an afternoon with us. And so, we both just wanted to share a little bit about our why and how we find ourselves here for today’s session. And so, for me, as Laura shared, I was former classroom teacher and I really kind of started asking myself this question when I was in the classroom about how do we engage in education in a way that is joyful, that allows students and adults to show up in ways that are authentically engaging and that are humanizing. And so over the course of my career and time in education, I call that an ongoing inquiry.

And so as I left the classroom and worked at district offices, a question I started asking myself was, how do we work with adults to step into this work? What are the conditions required that, as different systems of education, what are our roles collectively in making it so that we can cultivate these types of systems in education? So it’s just a little bit about me and my connection beyond the kind of bio and bullet points there. And so I’ll pass it to Amber to share a little bit about herself.

Amber Valdez:

Thank you, Lan. Joy really is everything. Hi, everyone. It’s wonderful to be in community with all of you today. I am joining you from Oakland, which is home to me in many ways and a place that I carry with me as I think about the learning experience we are gathered for over this next hour. I often share with my WestEd and other colleagues that Oakland raised me professionally. I’ve had the privilege of working with school principals, community schools and family engagement leaders and central office administrators in Oakland on organizational development and leadership for nearly two decades, and they’ve taught me what I know about how to lead complex change in ways that are participatory and also that demonstrate and lead to equity. So that’s a little shout out to home and are very connected here and they’ve really taught me so much about what we’re going to talk about today, so thank you Oakland. With that, I think I’m going to get back to Lan.

Lan Nguyen:

Thank you. So the title of today’s session is The Art of Participatory Leadership. So we wanted to prime your thinking for today’s content. On the next few slides, I’m going to show three images and they have questions and the art. And then whatever you think about the questions, one or two words, put it in the chat. I know it’s hard, but try not to overthink it. Just kind of share in the chat what comes to mind. So here’s the first one. So looking at this image, in the chat, share a word or two about how you think this image connects to leading systems change. So I’ll give you about 10 to 15 seconds to think and type that into the chat.

We’ve got adaptive thinking, growth, growing gardens, uplifting, open mind is equal to growth, there’s an opportunity for growth, hope of happiness, fertilizing the systemic garden. Oh, love it. We’re gardening, cultivating conditions, growing ideas, exploring a garden of possibilities. Oh, the word garden really is coming up here. Positivity, mindset change, transformational growth. Great. Okay, so we’ve got two more images. Oh, we got more about planting seeds, feeding our minds with knowledge. Great, thank you all. Okay, this next image. So again, in the chat, share a word or two about how you think this particular image connects to leading systems change in ways that are participatory and whatever you know about that word. Participatory your relationship to it.

I see connection, connection, longing, inclusive, collaborate. We are stronger together. Collaboration and community in the process, being together, unity, student voice, joy, inclusion, affirming and meaningful, bringing in, listening to youth voices, happiness, easy flowing, feels positive. All right, great. And our last image. Oh, having each other’s back, joy is big too. Our last one for our collective check-in here is just how you think this image connects to leading system change in ways that demonstrate and lead to equity. Another 10 to 15 seconds to think through that one. Looking ahead, always a new day, new start. The best is yet to come. Y’all are making me feel hopeful. Solidarity, we do it together, standing side by side in partnership, community building, stop to rest. Oh yes, that one. Companionship. Do it with a team, new dawn, grand but beautiful, optimism, together we can find the light side by side, honoring working together is magical. Right. There’s themes about connection, doing it together, right? And cultivation, gardening, horizons together. Great.

Thank you all so much for sharing kind of what’s coming up with these images. I’m thinking about a bunch of different things as well with all the words that you shared. And so with that, we’d like to get into our session today. And so today’s session is based on the participatory systems change for equity, an inquiry guide for child, youth and family serving agencies developed by Amber and her colleagues through the California Center for School Climate and the National Center to improve Social-Emotional Learning and School Safety. So today’s session, while Amber will do an overview of the framework, really focuses on the emerging work around leadership and its role in leading participatory change. And so at the end of the session, we’ll actually share with you links to a webinar that does a deeper dive into that framework. Okay. So just wanted to share a note on some terms that we’re using so we’re starting from the same place here today. And the first one is the word participatory. Participatory refers to and emphasizes participation in action by members of a community affected by research evaluation, systems transformation or social change.

The next word is systems change, which is both a process and an outcome, and it involves shifting the component parts of a system and the pattern of interactions between these parts to ultimately form a new system that behaves in qualitatively different ways. Next, we have equity, which is the idea of treating everyone fairly and that everyone has what they need to develop to their full potential and to thrive. And finally, leadership, which is a set of behaviors used to help people align their collective vision to execute strategies towards this vision and to continually renew an organization. So we have those to start with, and of course there’s always much more that we can dive into, but we’ll get to what we can with our hour of time together today. And so core to this framework is this continuum of participation and thinking about the gradations of participation.

So not all systems change initiatives are participatory even if they are intended to be. So here’s an illustration of the continuum of participation. And you may have seen other representations of this including Hart’s Ladder of children’s participation and the student voice continuum from Californians for Justice and others. And so the continuum ranges from non-participation to tokenism and extraction, to various degrees of participation. And so starting on the non-participation side, you can see the words manipulate and decorate there. We might manipulate community members into supporting causes that were not inspired by them or community members are treated as decoration at events and in communications materials to bolster a cause. Moving on to tokenism and extraction. We might engage with community members where they’re placated with space and promises to appease their concerns, or when community members are provided information, assigned roles and informed about how they are involved. On the consulted side, they might be asked for their input, they might be informed about how their input will be used and then told the decisions that are ultimately made based on their input.

And so finally moving to degrees of participation. We have involving people. And when we’re saying people, we mean that the people that our systems are seeking to serve, involving them in bidirectional communication with systems leaders and involved in committees and advisory teams to help inform decisions. And another degree of participation is when we collaborate with community members and they hold leadership roles on committees and governance bodies and participate in shared decision-making with systems leaders. Leading together with community members means we co-lead and co-design, change efforts with systems leaders and have shared or full decision-making and leadership power. And so it’s a really core idea for us to sit with as we talk about what it means to lead in these ways.

So reflecting on your own experiences, this is a question we have for you, and we have a Mentimeter, which you can access by using this QR code or by a link in the chat. But think about some recent systems change efforts in your school, school district, organization or regional or state agency. Where have these efforts tended to land on the continuum of participation? And so I’m going to go ahead and switch my screen really quick and share this with you all. So it is a heat map. So if you’re going on your computer or on your phone, there’s a little pin that you can actually drag and drop. Where on this participation continuum have you typically seen any particular initiative that you’re thinking about? So it’ll give you about 15 seconds or so to think about and pin that where you can kind of see where is the focus here.

Take about five more seconds. So far it looks like there’s a high concentration of folks having experiences in the tokenism and extraction part of the continuum with a couple of folks in the degrees of maybe beginning to step into the degrees of participation and a handful of folks in the non-participation part of the continuum. And so this is a question, right? Thinking about different spaces that you’re in, what are the degrees, right? Because different spaces might operate in different ways. And so we invite you to hold this kind of reflection on your own experiences and on the experiences of community members, where you are at, and what they might be experiencing also in different spaces throughout our time together today. And so thank you for engaging in that and I’m going to hand it over to Amber to get us into the framework.

Amber Valdez:

Thank you so much, Lan. All right, so next we’re going to talk about the participatory systems change for equity framework, which Lan is pulling up for us. This slide that you’re about to see is a visual representation of how our team at WestEd is thinking about opportunities to transform systems in partnership with the very people who are impacted by child, youth and family serving agencies. So that includes our young people, families, community partners, educators, providers and administrators. And so we refer to this as participatory systems change for equity. Our underlying belief is that systems change efforts are more likely to be equitable and sustainable when they’re designed, implemented, and continuously improved in partnership with those who are most proximate to the experiences and outcomes that are produced by these systems. Over the next handful of slides, I’m going to walk us through the framework at a high level. If you’d like to follow along at your own pace, you can access a copy of the framework and the resource tab in your zoom toolbar.

So first I’m going to start with our working definition, drawing on principles of community organizing, systems thinking, liberatory design, continuous improvement and participatory methods. The framework is an approach to systems change that centers the experiences and wisdom of those who are impacted by systemic inequity to make sense of and interrupt inequitable system conditions through collective action. It’s important also to think about where systems change is located. So earlier, if you all were able to attend the keynote with Dr. Portia, there was mention of a similar framework, right? Similar and I think the same language around needing to attend to change at the individual, interpersonal and institutional level. So individual being about the beliefs, the mindsets, the mental models or individual actions, interpersonal about the relationships, power dynamics that happen within systems and between people, and then at the institutional level are the things we can see or that are more explicit like policies, practices, and how resources flow throughout a system. So just keeping that in mind as we’re talking about systems change, we are thinking of it at these various levels.

So I’m going to go over the framework by starting at the center of it, which is the white circle there, and then I’m going to move us toward each next layer of the framework from there. So I know it’s small font on the screen, so definitely encourage you to take a look at the handout so that you can follow along more closely. The innermost circle of the framework represents the why of participatory systems change, which is to transform systems for equity, opportunity and well-being. By partnering with communities to see how systems have been designed to oppress the very people that they’re intended to serve and by working together to bear witness to the impact of this reality and using this collective understanding to create something better together, we believe it becomes possible to build equitable, responsive and sustainable systems that contribute to thriving communities. The orange ring outlines the seven elements of participatory systems change for equity, which are really the fundamental steps to any change process.

So if you think of a continuous improvement process or a strategic planning process and so on, these probably look familiar. So one is connecting in community, building the trust that is necessary to carry change efforts forward, seeing the system and centering community experiences, really understanding the ways in which system conditions are working or not working for young people and other partners within the system. Using that understanding to dream a vision for the future, what’s possible, what could be better, and then deciding on priorities and goals together that are aligned toward that vision and helping you kind of get closer to that vision. And then generating change approaches that help you reach those goals. And then aligning policies, practices, resources to hold change. So making sure that the system is appropriately aligned to hold that change over time. And then learning together and growing change is really about a continuous improvement process, just as fundamental and ongoing to this work. You could also map the LCAP process, which is probably familiar to many of you, or the CPSA development process to these steps.

The next layer, the magenta ring, speaks to the importance of paying attention to all of the different parts of a system, including how policies and practices impact our young people and how attending to technical, adaptive and emergent change also recognizes that we don’t have all of the answers, and it’s important to constantly learn together about what works and what doesn’t. Many of you have probably, throughout the California education community, have seen versions of this, like the iceberg analogy, the stuff you can see above the water, below the water, or the above and below the green line, that comes from Margaret Wheatley, and then I think our friends at National Equity Project often use, but really it’s getting to the technical stuff you can see, policies, practices, adaptive, the more implicit stuff like relationships and how power shows up and mindsets as well.

The green ring represents the importance of change being done in community and that change is held together by relational trust. So we can’t do any of this without that relational trust piece. So that’s really the underlying kind of through line for this. And then finally, our outermost circle are the guiding principles for participatory systems change for equity, which you’ll see on this next slide. And they do include things like sharing power, self-determination, promoting culturally responsive and sustaining change, making sure that the change is supporting the sustainability of culture, and then prioritizing, of course, transparency and accessibility and so on. So we invite you to take a closer look at the framework. I know that was a lot of information really fast and a pretty high level presentation on the framework. And as Lan mentioned earlier, you’re welcome to check our other resources. You can look at the full guide and also a previous webinar that does a deeper dive into the framework.

Finally, before we jump into our next segment, I do want to note some examples of systems change efforts that can be facilitated in ways that are participatory if it helps folks kind of take the theoretical to the, okay, what does this look like in practice? Strategic planning, right? That could be your LCAP development process, your CPSA development process, engaging in participatory budgeting, participatory policymaking at the school district or state level, school design efforts such as, there are many LEAs across the state that are working on community schools development. Also, another example is the launch of a new school or the redesign of an existing school. And then finally, district initiatives. So if you’re in a improvement initiative that is district-wide, such as, for example, improving student and staff wellbeing, it is a change process in which the framework can be applied.

Okay. So, now we’re going to get into the key content for our session today. So one of the pieces of feedback we received after we published the framework and guide last spring was, “This is great, but what about the leadership component?” And since then, our team has been thinking deeply about that question and we’ve conducted some preliminary data gathering that has led us to some emerging leadership competencies for leading systems change in ways that are participatory and that demonstrate and lead to equity. We’re currently in a learning and iterating phase as we propose a set of leadership competencies, and we see this session as a part of that phase. So before we share with you the emerging competencies, we’re going to ask you another question using Mentimeter once again. We’d love to hear from you, what comes to mind when you imagine leading systems change in ways that are participatory? And in a second, Lan will share the results with us, so just take a couple minutes to think about that.

Lan Nguyen:

And you can use a QR code or hopefully there’s a link in the chat.

Amber Valdez:

Thank you, Lan. Oh, I love what’s coming up here. Sharing power, listening, humility, collaborating, meeting off campus, openness, taking time, safety and sharing, focus, truth telling, elevating voices, communication, bias awareness, all feel heard. There’s so much here. Thank you all so much for sharing. Lan, I think this gives us a little bit of an indicator that we might be on the right track. There’s definitely some new things here. We’re learning so much from all of you already, so thank you. Okay. With that, we are going to share the questions that are guiding our research as we think about competencies for leading participatory systems change. So this first question is, what leadership competencies are necessary to lead systems change in ways that are participatory and that lead and demonstrate to equity? So we’ve kind of been hinting at that already throughout the presentation. That is really one of our core leading questions. Next is how are leaders being called upon in a time of exponential change and what do they need to meet the moment and thrive?

We are definitely in a time of exponential change, which is requiring us all to lead in new and different ways. So it’s definitely central to how we’re thinking about these competencies. And finally, how can leaders and teams engage in honest and deep reflection about their leadership strengths and opportunities? So what’s really important to us, and also when we published the previous or the original guide on the framework, is that it’s a useful, practical tool, so this question is really helping to push our team to whatever we put out there in the world, that it is a useful thing and not just us putting out a report on leadership. So that’s also guiding how we’re thinking about this. Okay. So this illustration represents our working theory, if you will, around the competencies for leading systems change in ways that are participatory. It’s organized by categories of competencies in the left column and then the competencies in the right column. So categories and then competencies, drawing on the earlier framing about change happening at the individual, interpersonal and institutional level, the categories of competencies cover leading self, leading with others and leading systems change.

And within those categories, then are the emerging competencies. So under leading with self, we have self-awareness, which is about knowing, noticing and reflecting on self, including things like identity, positional authority, mental models, the ways in which we show up as leaders, purpose, having a clear purpose or north star, something that guides how you lead. Wisdom, things like knowing enough to know what you don’t know or that you don’t have all of the answers, as one example, and then also the wisdom to look to the wisdom and experiences of the people that you serve and partner with. Leading with others includes deep listening, so active listening skills that build empathy, understanding and motivate learning. Relational trust building is really, again, what carries everything, how you move in ways that build relational trust over time with the communities that you’re partnering with. And participatory action is about moving in ways that are participatory. So really, that falls into the participation category on the continuum that Lan reviewed with us earlier.

And then finally, leading systems change. So, so far, we have this competency on systems thinking and design thinking, which is related to understanding the complexity and dynamic nature of systems and how systems are designed to produce the outcomes that they get, and practicing design principles to move toward meaningful change. Critical consciousness, so having lenses of, how do systems operate and perpetuate oppressive outcomes and experiences moving in anti-oppressive action and so on. And then adaptability and emergence is having the skills, knowledge, and wisdom to understand and move in ways that recognize the dynamic nature of systems and that require us to adapt to change in small and big moments. And then finally at the very bottom it says attend power dynamics and relational trust. So we see those as fundamental to all of these competencies. And with that, I think I’m, yes, going to hand it back over to Lan. There’ll be less talking at you and more engagement, so thank you all for your grace as we shared a whole bunch of information with you pretty fast. So we’ll get into a little more engagement now. Lan, take it away.

Lan Nguyen:

I will. I mean, it’s all good stuff, Amber, so I appreciated hearing it again. So we’re going to spend a little bit of time hopefully grounding some of these ideas that Amber shared with us and some real examples. And so we’re going to play a couple of audio clips for you from school leaders, school and district leaders or education leaders about some work that they’ve done in their communities. And so as you listen, think about the competencies that Amber went through. So here they are again. And think about, maybe, is there one there that really speaks out to you or that you want to think about or that just stands out to you in general? You might change your mind as you listen to the story, but just think about that and how it shows up in the story, how are you thinking about what that means for our activity in just a moment. So with that said, I’m going to go ahead and play an audio clip that is about two minutes or so from the Encompass Academy in Oakland about some of the work that they’ve done.

Encompass Academy staff via audio recording:

When we started the design process, we took three years to do it. We did not know it was going to take three years. We tried to evolve according to the development of the team. And that is really important because so often you bring people to the table and it’s very tokenized, and if you bring families members to the table, the power dynamic with educators are such that, and especially cross-culturally, some families feel like they have to defer to the educators in the decision-making. So it’s really important to slow down the process so that we can listen to one another, know about each other’s families, so that when we are actually making decisions, power dynamic is more balanced. And then we also want to make sure that our team was representing the four directions. The four directions is really from the east, the south, the west, and the north.

A lot of the other design teams that I was seeing during the small schools movement at the time were not led by people of color, and the ways of approaching the work was still a very western approach of like, let’s just move forward efficiency over community. And so we wanted to make sure that we had our indigenous folks, our Asian-Americans, our African-American, our Latinx, our European-Americans really just hold space in a way that, as Bell Hooks would say, is really to move from margin to center, really bring the epistemology, the ways of knowing, into the room in the way that we envision and develop the design. We know that education starts with the self. It’s guided by family, engaged in community, and rooted in the ancestors.

Lan Nguyen:

All right. So it’s that great story just, again, reiterating these questions, review the nine emerging competencies. We’re going to share a Padlet and those competencies will be listed there, but just think about these questions. How did it show up? How would you describe that particular competency to someone? And what advice would you give to another leader looking to strengthen this competency? No need to answer all of the questions, just answer whichever ones you want to or feel particularly resonant. So we’re going to drop a link to a Padlet in the chat, and I’ll go ahead and switch my screen here to share that. Looks like this. And so you’ll see the same competencies here are across the screen with each of the categories and their sub competencies. So if you just take a couple of minutes to just think about what you heard and just how did it show up. Again, you can answer all of them, one of them, it’s up to you. And those same directions that we just iterated are here.

And if you’re not familiar with Padlet, you can click the plus sign here or under whichever category you’re choosing to share your reflections. So we’ll just give folks a couple of minutes to do that. We’re seeing some responses come in already. So it looks like a deep listening, which took time, and, in this case, three years. Critical consciousness. So we just showed a strong sense of power dynamics between educators and members of the community, including issues of race and religion. Under leading systems change, they adapted to the timeline changing and taking three years rather than just moving forward. Absolutely. Under leading with others, we have engaging in a slow progression to allow time for relationship and trust building. Some responses under leading self, self-awareness helps me to clarify my values, purpose allows me to see that not everything is about me. Wisdom is not owned by one person. Oh, I love that. I need to listen twice as much as I talk. Same.

Wisdom can be collective. Yes. Relational trust building, ensuring there’s representation and safe space for all. See if I’m missing any. Okay, like another 15 seconds or so if there’s any reflections you’d like to share. We have another audio story. So keep this Padlet open as you listen to the next one too. I think the one line that really stands out to me is not prioritizing efficiency over community. I don’t know if that hit anyone else, but it did for me, that kind of rush to do things and that need to slow down. I took into account cultural differences, avoiding the old attitude of efficiency over community. We must have been in tune there. Great. Continue sharing your reflections. We’re going to keep working on this Padlet. And so for this next audio clip story, I’ll go ahead and play that. I’m going to switch back here. Okay, here we go.

Castle Park staff via audio recording:

Coming back together with the staff saying these were highlighted as some of the main concerns contributing to teacher burnout. What are some of the solutions we could put in place to address them? And then that was the second cycle of data collection that we had done. Once we had the data, we actually shared it with the whole staff and we allowed them to look at the major outputs. People realized, oh, I’m not alone in these experiences. And they had a chance for us to come together and realize we were having a collective experience rather than an individual experience, which, any organization can tell you, strengthens the bond between people when they realize they’re not alone. The solution circles themselves also contributed to some of the output. We realized we needed a different program in order to deal with student behavior, so that was one of the reasons that PBIS is now growing here at Castle Park as our pilot program for student behavior.

It also led to other initiatives as we need to maintain assessing how our staff is doing. So we put forth a new data collection process in which the beginning of this school year, we asked staff to submit answers to a survey on staff wellness. This is something we need to do a deeper dive on, and that deeper dive ended up being the National Conflict Resolution Center coming back and facilitating another round of talking circles in October of 2022. Our next step is another data collection point to see if any of the things we have put in place are having effect or if there’s new conditions. And just ensuring that at least that baseline of feeling seen and heard is maintained because that seemed to be the most powerful, immediate thing that we could do to support staff here. I think one of the biggest indicators is our teachers are staying. They’re not leaving. They’re not taking jobs elsewhere. Even though it’s incredibly difficult to be a teacher here right now, people are staying and they’re showing up every day ready to do their jobs.

And I think that’s the biggest testament to the work that we’re doing because what we were seeing last year was people being ready to possibly move on to something else. The other component of it is when you talk to people in the hallways, the glue that’s holding us together is that we’re in it together. We do hear from new teachers who come on our campus that they feel people are looking out for them, checking in with them, they feel like they’re not isolated or alone, which is, as we know, a horrible indicator of burnout amongst teachers. But on a data perspective, it’s those staff wellness input direct from the individual and then analyzed by our climate and culture, which is giving us data indicators. And that is something that we are going to continue to analyze as we go forward. It’s not a one and done, like, okay, the staff is well, now we’re done.

Lan Nguyen:

Another great story. And so the questions are the same. And again, please continue adding your reflections from the other story as they come up. But again, same ones. How did this competency show up? How might you describe it to someone? What advice would you give to another leader looking to strengthen this competency? And you can answer 1, 2, 3, however many questions are particularly resonant for you. And so, same Padlet here, we’ll give you, let’s say, two minutes or so. We understand these are kind of deep reflective questions, and so we’ll just give you some silent time to write those and then we’ll review them in just a moment.

Let’s do about another 20 seconds or so. Okay, so we’ve got some great responses coming in. So it looks like we have, under leading cell, understanding the impact on new teachers and retaining staff, right? Yeah. How do the ways we show up connect to that? Someone wrote, I need to be aware of lending a hand to others. We have, relational trust was being built if teachers are choosing to stay. Absolutely. Retention. When you lead with others, give them time and space and support and create slash co-create the vision. Progress is made, people feel empowered and the whole environment improves. There’s no wonder then that retention of staff improves and retention of families and partners in the community, etc. Absolutely. Glue holding it together is we’re doing the work together. So participatory action and all, doing the work together because everyone is invested. Yes. And one of the things that I’ve learned from a mentor of mine is a community is about having a place and having a role, and that’s one of the things that I think about why participatory action is so important. It’s the process that is building community.

It’s, I have something meaningful to contribute to this place and this space. And so a baseline of feeling seen and heard is important, including minorities to move from margin to center. Absolutely. Okay. And then let’s see if I missed any others here. I heard relational trust building when the speaker emphasized inclusion of all instead of some. It appears that inviting all to the table, make sure all voices are heard and valued. Right. And then also, more than just the invitation, attending to power and what might be preventing people from wanting to maybe accept the invitation to the table. Systems and design thinking. They discuss how they’re focused on making changes based on the data of the people directly involved in the work. Absolutely. That’s engaging in data in participatory ways. And the changes were related to solving problems that were mentioned by the stakeholders. Yeah. Systems and design thinking, ongoing cycle of data collection, analysis, reflection, and action. As they said, the three-year process, it takes time and it’s not a good idea to rush systems change. Better to give it the time it needs.

All amazing reflections, and we really thank you all for sharing your wisdom with us in terms of leading in ways that are participatory. So we are coming up on the near end of our time together. And just a note, this is one-hour session we have together. I think each of the competencies, we could probably have entire multiple-day sessions on just each of them. And so we realized that this is an overview, it’s an appetizer, if you will, for really digging into this work a bit more deeply. Again, thank you all. And so we wanted to kind of leave you all with something to take with you that feels actionable, and so we got three verbs for you, learn, reflect, and act, right? So learn. If you are not familiar with the framework, we have a link to the webinar that’s, I believe, in the resource page and also will be in the chat that was recorded in the past that goes specifically a little bit more deep into the framework itself, so we encourage you to check that out.

Reflect the Participatory Systems Change For Equity Guide has questions, and these questions are really powerful. To think about your team, your district, your agency’s relationship to each of the elements that Amber went over earlier. And so it’s an inquiry guide. So just reflecting on that with yourself and other people, and then act, share some of your reflections from today with someone you know. Discuss opportunities to strengthen your leadership or the leadership of others for participatory systems change. And with that, I’m going to hand it over to Laura to take us to the end here.

Laura Buckner:

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Lan and Amber, for sharing with us today. And really, folks, if this has piqued your interest, the Inquiry Guide is an excellent place to start. I know we’ve got more resources coming out related to all of this, so please stay in touch and let us know how you’re using these things too because I know we’d love to hear. And just say thank you all very, very much for joining us. We appreciate the time that you spent with us today. Thank you Lan and Amber for sharing with us about all of the work that you are doing in Participatory Systems Change for Equity. Thank you very much everybody. Have a great afternoon.