Community Engagement
The Stronger Smarter Approach focuses on genuine collaboration with communities and turns thinking towards a different and dynamic vision of community empowerment.
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Community empowerment model
Traditionally, schools have thought of ‘community engagement’ as being directed and controlled by the school, inviting parents and community members into the school to support existing structures and programs and decisions that have already been made. The Stronger Smarter Approach moves beyond this idea to focus on genuine collaboration with communities and turns thinking towards a different and dynamic vision of community empowerment.
Indigenous parents, community members and Indigenous Education Workers have articulate and powerful voices, and are seeking to engage in substantive, informed dialogue about school practices and operations and teaching and learning. In a community empowerment model, the voices of parents and community are privileged in all aspects of education, starting with the decisions about what they see as a quality education and quality outcomes for their children. These are authentic partnerships where families are engaged in the whole process of conceptualisation, planning, enactment and evaluation – a shared two-way engagement.
Community Empowerment Framework
The Stronger Smarter Institute has developed a First Nations Community Empowerment Framework which provides a set of processes to support whole school communities to work together to improve outcomes for students.
The Framework looks at ways to shift the power towards community decision making and community ownership of strategies and outcomes for student engagement, attendance and educational outcomes. It focuses on what the community and the school can achieve together.
The Framework is a rethinking and reframing seeking to move away from deficit thinking and take a strength-based approach that recognises, nurtures and builds on existing strengths, skills and resources within the whole school community. The Framework uses Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, and is underlain by the Stronger Smarter Approach (SSA)
The Framework was developed through a a pilot project funded by the NIAA Children and Schooling Programme.
Taribelang Aboriginal Corporation
In 2019, the Institute launched a partnership with the Taribelang Aboriginal Corporation (TAC), Gladstone Ports Corporation, the Port Curtis Coral Coast Trust (PCCC) and the Queensland Department of Education. This partnership supported TAC to work together with local schools to share Taribelang Bunda culture with students. The project involved Stronger Smarter Leadership Programs where community members and teachers from the Bundaberg areas of Queensland came together. This provided the catalyst to develop relationships and connections.
Members of TAC told us that having the backing of an Indigenous-led organisation such as the Stronger Smarter Institute was important, and the project is seeing greater incentive from schools to engage with their local community.
Warril Yari-Go, Logan
The Institute has had a long-standing involvement with community groups in the Logan area of Brisbane, including working with Warril Yari-Go and Logan Together. These community movements aim to grow Logan’s kids up well, through ensuring community voices to advise and guide the work of organisations and the development of programs to support local youth. Our involvement included running Stronger Smarter Leadership Programs organised by Warril Yari-Go, a leadership group consisting of First Nations Elders and community leaders from across Logan.
