The RESPECT Project : Initial Phase

Getting to the questions

The first phase of the RESPECT action learning program was a workshop - open to all - that explored some major issues associated with relationships between staff and parents/carers. That introductory workshop elicited a broad consensus among participants as to the things that they did and didn’t do in their relationships with parents. In these relationships, they said, they always:

• acknowledge parents’ particular knowledge of their child/ren
• acknowledge parents’ concerns and expectations, even if that entails listening to views with which they disagree
• seek parents’ views about curriculum and planning
• encourage parents to feel part of a community
• invite parents to fund-raising events and art projects.

Similarly, participants said that in those relationships, they never:

• assumed that they knew more than parents
• gave false or negative feedback to parents
• demanded that parents participate in the program
• pursue social relationships with parents outside work
• discuss their personal lives with parents
• display their personal feelings to parents.

Each participant in RESPECT’s introductory workshop was invited to join the program’s second phase - three 6-hour workshops, supported by the RESPECT team. Eleven people agreed to join. Each was asked to record their reflections and actions during the action learning program in a Reflective Journal. The quotes in each Case Study come from the relevant person’s Reflective Journal.

Despite the consensus on the ‘norms’ and ‘nevers’ in their relationships with parents, participants had different ‘niggles’ about those relationships. Thus, each of the eleven people who agreed to participate in the RESPECT action learning program followed a ‘journey’ with distinctive elements differentiating it from the others’. However, all the journeys followed a common path, summarised thus:

Stage One                  Formulating my research question

Stage Two                  Answering my research question

Stage Three               How have I changed?

Stage Four                  Where next?