¡Adelante!

Our theme at Pepitas this year for staff and parent learning is ¡Adelante!

Inspired by Elena Aguilra's book Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. We're working on our own resilience skills and practices so that we can model it for our kids and community. Our latest reflection is about the importance of building community. Did you know that people who are part of a healthy community are more resilient? It's true! Being part of a healthy community is an amazing thing, a privilege. It is a massive privilege to be part of the Pepitas and LFPPC community. In our preschool staff's work on learning about resilience, we learned that being in a healthy community is really good for you, but as a community member you have a sizable responsibility to contribute  to the health of the group. I've got three actions and a posture for us to consider together:

1. How's your cultural competence? This is your ability to understand, communicate, and interact effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds by recognizing and adapting to cultural differences. It involves being aware of your own biases, valuing diversity, and continuously learning about other cultures to provide appropriate services and build positive relationships.

2. How's your trust level? Do you trust people in your community? Do they trust you? How can you increase trust in both directions?

3. Are you listening expansively? Expansive listening is a compassionate and open-ended way of listening with curiosity and no agenda, focusing on understanding the person rather than fixing a problem. It involves listening for deeper meaning, emotions, and potential, rather than rushing to a conclusion or solution. The goal is to create connection, build trust, and empower the speaker by making them feel truly heard and valued.

Our community-building posture is empathy: You can show empathy by actively listening without judgment, acknowledging and validating the other person's feelings, asking thoughtful questions to understand others' perspective, sharing your own experiences to build connection, and offering support in a way that respects their needs.

Building community is big, beautiful work. It takes time and practice and it's so worth it. Take little steps forward - every little bit makes a positive impact on our community!

Melissa