CARING COMMUNITIES REPRESENTATIVES VISIT AREA

The biggest challenge for many Caring Communities partnerships in Missouri often is generating interest among parents and community members, according to representatives of several of the partnerships throughout the state.

Representatives of more than 20 Missouri agencies visited with coordinators to network and discuss Caring Communities Tuesday morning at Blanchard, Franklin and Jefferson schools. The three schools are Caring Communities sites.

Caring Communities is an initiative designed to bring communities, schools and state agencies together to provide better services for children and families.

The representatives were in town as part of a monthly meeting of the Community Partnerships agencies. The meetings typically take place in St. Louis and Jefferson City.

The Community Caring Council, which sponsors the meetings, pools funds and seeks grants that will help it meet six objectives: parents working, children and families safe, children and families healthy, children ready to enter school, children succeeding in school, and youth ready to enter productive adulthood.

Caring Communities was designed to help meet those goals and is funded through the Community Caring Council.

At Blanchard and Jefferson, the representatives -- many of whom were Caring Communities site coordinators in other parts of the state -- met with coordinators and school officials to talk about programs that have been developed at each school and discuss differences among Caring Communities.

Kay Azuma, psych coordinator at Blanchard, said getting parents involved is sometimes difficult.

"Parents need to feel they have something to offer," she said. "I think they need to buy into the Caring Communities program and see us in action."

Azuma said her group is working to put together a Caring Communities council that will have representation from a Parent Teacher Association member, a student, a minister and others from the community and the school.

"Something we worked on last year was taking the programs out into the neighborhoods," she said. "We look at the strengths of the family and the strengths of the child and try to pair programs with the kids."

One way the group refocused its energy was to obtain feedback from the families. For instance, Azuma said, based on answers to a questionnaire, parents wanted to learn more about computers.

"So we started adult computer literacy classes out in the neighborhoods for the parents," she said.

Another topic of discussion during the tours was schools' adoption of the Boys Town Model of social skills. Through the model, students are taught about following directions, accepting "no" as an answer, apologizing, accepting and giving compliments, greeting and talking to others and volunteering,

Blanchard therapist Karen Wynn said the school realized youngsters often were not taught basic social skills at home, and the school stepped in.

"Research shows that the kids who have trouble with discipline are the kids who don't have basic social skills," she said. "Our principal is extremely invested in this model, and so are the teachers and staff."

Betty Hughes and Kim White are both site coordinators at the Butler County Caring Communities. Both said the meeting was beneficial and provided them with ideas to take back to the Poplar Bluff area.

Hughes said she would encourage others to get involved in the program because it helps to strengthen the link between the school and the community. She said she found it interesting that there were apparent differences among the duties of coordinators throughout the state.

"It seems like a lot of site coordinators' job descriptions are different," she said. "But the philosophy and principles of the program are the same. It's just that the duties are different."

White said she also learned a great deal from talking with other coordinators.

"It was good to get to go to the other sites and see how other partnerships work in the communities," White said. "Trying to get the community involved is the big challenge. You want to make it so that it's not just industry people and teachers who are involved in the program."