Neitasha is a parent and paraprofessional at Sojourner Truth Academy. She’s a big advocate for AmeriCorps – all three of her kids have had AmeriCorps tutors, 今年夏天, 她在帮我们招募项目成员.
回到2019年, Neitasha helped parents and caregivers at Sojourner Truth give feedback to Math Corps through a series of focus groups. 这些焦点小组产生了一个护理人员知情的应用程序原型, complete with their students’ math lessons and progress – based on the idea that caregivers wanted greater access to what their students were learning. Neitasha is a brilliant facilitator and lends a thoughtful perspective to this work. 以下是我们与她的对话.
左图:今年夏天Neitasha的孩子们在帮她招募新兵!
When you first became aware of AmeriCorps at Sojourner Truth, you were a parent. What was it like to have your kids be a part of AmeriCorps programs?
My kids attended Sojourner Truth Academy before I ever worked there. That was my introduction to AmeriCorps, through my children, and through their tutors. All my kids have had 早教团 tutors and 阅读队 tutors – amazing extra people who aren’t paid by the school to support their needs. 现在，我的儿子有了. Don, who’s amazing, as a Math Corps tutor for the past two years. 我女儿今年和他一起工作.
After starting your kids at Sojourner Truth, you became a paraprofessional there. 你以前在老年人护理部门工作，所以什么改变了你?
I was dropping one of my kids off one day, and I was dressed up for an interview. A director at Sojourner Truth looked at me and asked, where are you going? And I said, I’m ready to go back to work, since all my kids are in school now. 我现在真的要去面试了. 她要了我的简历，说，我们希望你能来. 大约两天后，我在教室里.
我们真的成功了. I’m still doing what my heart loves and helping a different sector of people. I’m somewhere I believe in, somewhere that pushes my kids and loves them. 在Sojourner Truth工作是个简单的选择.
你加入了扫盲课程小组, 你在哪里认识桑迪·普尔斯的, 我们的公平和包容副总裁, 他当时是雷丁队的教练. 你们俩怎么这么合得来?
At first, I didn’t know much about her, but what I knew was the kids loved her. Every time when she came to get the kids, they were like just over the moon to leave the classroom. 如果孩子们喜欢你，那你就做对了.
我们很快就因为志同道合而走到了一起. 我们都在寻找如何增加股权, 我们怎样才能添加孩子们真正认同的东西呢. We wanted to put more culture in the curriculum to make it look more like the kids we work with.
Sandy made me such a strong advocate in my own school for all of the scholars. She believes in me, and I have carried that with me in everything I do.
2019年，你和桑迪合作了一些焦点小组. 是关于什么的?
在我们一起参加扫盲小组之后, one of the first projects we did was a caregiver focus group for K-3 Math Corps. We wanted to know how parents and caregivers felt about how they were being communicated with during the pandemic. We found that many caregivers felt like they wanted to know more about what their kids were learning and their kid’s progress in Math Corps. They also wanted to be able to help their kids with their math homework.
在一起, we came up with the idea to make an app specifically for caregivers in the academic area of math. We got funding from the Gates Foundation to do paid focus groups so the app prototype could be really informed by caregivers themselves.
应用原型最终是什么样子? 这个过程是怎样的?
There were a lot of rounds of revision between the developers and the caregiver focus groups. In the end it was exactly what all these parents said they wanted, which was really cool. The app prototype gives an easy way for parents to check in on their student’s Math Corps progress. It also helps them with homework – there are short videos and lessons for parents to learn about the math their student is learning.
During the process, our opinions mattered so much, which was amazing. The app prototype really includes our ideas the way we wanted them to be presented. That really empowered our community and our parents, and they got paid in the process. Having someone on the app team in the focus groups was really helpful, 所以他们可以看到家长们的热情. It’s the personal touch, and parents being there from the ground up, that makes them stakeholders.
关于让照顾者参与决策，你学到了什么?
It was really important to connect with people when it was most convenient for them. 对很多人来说，那是晚上9点. 那是你回家的时候，你才有自己的时间. The other thing was connecting with people the way they wanted to be connected with. 有些人不想被录音，所以我和他们单独交谈. 还有一些人只是想在学校跟我说话. Everyone was paid, so that was helpful to really value their time.
老实说，每个人都希望被倾听和被重视. 这取决于你在和谁说话, 你可能不相信有人在听你说话, 或者你的意见会影响决策. We had to really build that trust with caregivers so they knew we’re really listening.
你接下来要去哪里?
I’ve been training for the past couple years in positive behavior interventions. I’ve continued to train and study, and next year I will be a behavior interventionist. I am studying a lot right now on just different ways to reach a kid and help them be their best and that that’s different for every kid.
有兴趣为美国军团服务? 了解更多关于我们的节目 or 皇冠官方APP客户端的招聘团队 哪个项目可能更适合你.
