Promoting mutual understanding and peace: celebrating International Literacy Day

International Literacy Day 2024 invites us to reflect on the profound impact that literacy has on fostering mutual understanding and peace.

Literacy is not just about reading and writing; it is a powerful tool for building connections, promoting inclusivity and supporting community-driven progress. As we celebrate this year's theme, we recognise that early years literacy is a cornerstone of child development, strengthening parent-child bonds and enhancing the social and emotional wellbeing of families and communities. 

This blog is intended for services or organisations facilitating early years partnerships, organisations conducting community-based research and service providers working in collaboration with stakeholders who share diverse levels of ‘power’ and influence.

 

We Love Stories: A community-driven literacy initiative

We Love Stories is an award-winning, place-based initiative that aims to have every child in West Heidelberg ready to learn to read and succeed upon school entry. The project highlights the critical role of literacy in supporting efforts to overcome the disadvantages that affect children’s early development.

We Love Stories celebrates the West Heidelberg community by encouraging families to write, speak, sing, or draw their stories—new or old through community-led book making. This creative engagement with literacy helps to:

• Build secure parent-child attachment through shared storytelling and creative expression.
• Embrace cultural diversity by drawing on the cultural and artistic strengths of local families.
• Improve literacy outcomes by making sharing stories fun for families who see their experiences reflected back to them.
• Ensure children in Banyule are school-ready, equipped with the skills and confidence they need.

We Love Stories is also uniting families facing adversity with key service stakeholders in an Early Years Partnership to support children’s literacy and developmental outcomes. The Early Years Partnership aims to co-design innovative solutions to remove barriers to poor developmental outcomes, recognising that literacy is a fundamental tool for empowerment and change.

The work of We Love Stories is founded on academic research, as well as the wisdom of local families and practitioners. In 2022-23, the Centre was a learning partner to We Love Stories, lending expertise in evaluation, partnership and facilitation.

In this blog we share:

• insights from our work with Banyule Community Health focusing on collaborative partnerships and system redesign to improve outcomes for children and families
• our learnings on community-centred projects to increase confidence and capacity
• ways that creative facilitation can be applied in community practice, along with practical tips and strategies to enhance your effectiveness in this field.

 

The transformative power of community partnerships

In the pursuit of community-driven progress, partnerships that embrace diversity emerge as catalysts for change. The importance of families with lived experience in community partnerships helps to ensure authentic insights and perspectives that provide solutions that align with the unique needs of the community. The stories shared between partnerships members:

• Build mutual understanding across cultural, linguistic and educational divides.
• Foster inclusive dialogues where all voices are heard and valued.

But how can we ensure that everyone feels empowered to participate and share their story? How do we address potential power imbalances influenced by factors such as educational attainment or English language proficiency? This is where creative facilitation comes in.

 

Creative facilitation

Creative facilitation promotes inclusivity by providing multiple entry points for individuals with varied learning styles, backgrounds and perspectives. By implementing creative activities, participants are empowered to:

• Express themselves in ways that resonate with them, fostering a sense of belonging.
• Engage in discussions that are richer and more inclusive, ensuring diverse perspectives are considered
• Feel a sense of ownership over the process, which strengthens their commitment to the partnership.

Shaping and moulding a Working Together Agreement

A Working Together Agreement (WTA) is a methodology regularly used by our Centre’s Systems Impact team. It serves as a guide and reflective evaluation tool for community partnerships, embodying a commitment to:

• Trust, transparency and mutual respect, to ensure that all parties feel valued.
• Clear roles, responsibilities, and communication protocols, to help prevent misunderstandings.
• Honouring community voices throughout the collaboration journey, to ensure that the process is as important as the outcome.
• Guide reflective practice between members of the partnership group, to foster continuous learning, and help align individual actions with shared values and goals.

 

The project team at We Love Stories took creative ownership of the development of their Working Together Agreement with their community partnership, valuing the process as much as the output. A four-step process outlines their efforts.

Step 1: An enabling environment

Based at Banyule Community Health, We Love Stories created a Working Together Agreement workshops that transcended traditional boundaries over two workshops. The workshop space was arranged into three distinct workstations, each offering a unique ambiance:

• Indoor adult-sized tables and chairs for discussion and brainstorming.
• An outdoor setup that invited a more relaxed, open dialogue.
• Child-sized tables and chairs to bring a playful, child-centred perspective to the discussions.

At each workstation, participants found printed playdough recipes alongside the necessary ingredients and utensils. Additionally, question prompts, notepaper and pens were readily available to facilitate discussions and note taking.

Step 2: Permission to play

In the spirit of creativity and hands-on learning, each group was invited to make the playdough together. They were asked to:

• Discuss what they would like a regular Early Years Partnership gathering to look, feel, and sound like.
• Create a depiction of their ideas using the playdough.

This permission to play aimed to challenge power dynamics across the group and allowed participants to express their ideas freely. 

Figures 1 & 2. ‘We want our gatherings to be an inclusive group of professionals and community members (including children and adults), that is reflective – sharing, bringing experiences. Colourful, bright, loud and welcoming.’ (Workshop participant)

 

Step 3: Responding to feedback

For the subsequent session, We Love Stories modified the activity based on participant feedback by replacing the playdough making with trays of diverse materials at each workstation. These materials included:

• Natural elements such as leaves, sticks and gum nuts to connect participants with nature.
• Building blocks and Duplo sets to encourage construction and problem-solving.

Step 4: Documenting voices

Photographs and verbatim notes captured the essence of each group's contributions, allowing We Love Stories to distil common themes and insights. From this collaborative process emerged a Working Together Agreement that included:

• Photos of the artworks created in the workshops to visually represent the group's collective vision.
• Direct quotes and the language of the participants to ensure their voices were authentically represented.

 

Playful reflections

In this dynamic setting, creative processes play a pivotal role in leveling the playing field and nurturing a culture of inclusivity. Several benefits were observed:

• By inviting participants to engage in playful exploration and imaginative expression, We Love Stories created an environment where adults are granted permission to embrace their innate child-like curiosity and creativity. This playfulness helped build mutual respect and understanding between participants.
• Diverse modes of expression were encouraged through these creative processes. People shared sayings, personal experiences, data, and professional observations.
• Deeper and more heartfelt responses were elicited through using creative facilitation methods that allowed some challenging conversations to surface and be discussed.
• The expertise of those who care for young children, such as parents/carers and early years workers, whose work is historically undervalued, was brought to the forefront. This challenges existing power dynamics.
• Having all participants see their contributions reflected in the final document closes the feedback loop and makes their influence on the process overt. This increased their sense of agency and connection to the partnership.
• Language rich, open-ended mutual play and conversations that are essential to children’s healthy development are modelled and practiced in the workshop activities. This means the workshops also serve as a skills development opportunity for workers and parents/carers.
• When community members bring children along, they can participate in the activities, meaning that their voices are heard too. When children are not present, these approaches help to keep them front of mind. As their future is the unifying motivation of everyone participating, this keeps the shared purpose in focus.

This process recognises that supporting children begins with understanding their world. We Love Stories champions the notion that play is not only a child's domain but also a universal language through which adults can connect, empathise and empower a whole community.

This blog was written by Nina Kelabora, We Love Stories Lead, Banyule Community Health and Loretta Pilla, Senior Project Officer, Systems Impact.

For more information visit We Love Stories