Poverty and Education

In education it is important that we help our staff understand culturally relevant pedagogy. 

Ask yourself are marginalized students over-represented in your school's special education program? I have noticed a disparity in our community for families living below the poverty line as well as equity of access to support children with special needs. It is difficult for families to access counselling, psycho-educational reports, occupational therapy and speech therapy without the means to seek private organizations.

At the school board level we have a poverty committee to address helping staff to understand the challenges that marginalized groups face daily. We are hosting a poverty challenge beginning with senior staff and then hopefully reaching all staff that work with children directly or indirectly. The poverty challenge is a chance for staff to walk in the shoes of someone living below the poverty line.

“We can’t sit here and think we know (about poverty) when we don’t,” said Martine Creasor, a caseworker with Lambton County’s social planning and program support department. “We have to educate ourselves about what it is they’re dealing with, and then we become part of the solution.”

The idea is that if there is more understanding about the causes and circumstances around poverty and the hoops people need to jump through just to get to the services meant to help them, there will be more empathy and support to develop strategies to help our students living in poverty.

In Guelph, Circles Guelph Wellington consists of three innovative programs:
- Bridges out of Poverty educates people from the middle or upper classes about what it means to live in poverty;- Getting Ahead is a program that helps people of low income learn about their own strengths and the resources available to them and;- Circles brings people from both programs together, creating relationships across economic boundaries and helping people move from poverty to sustainability.

Bridges offers training and is available to talk to school staff about the social and economic impact that poverty has on individuals and the community. Participants of the training are invited to look at poverty differently. This framework recognizes that individual choices can lead to poverty. Equally important, it recognizes there are other contributing circumstances that individuals have no control over. The Bridges model is built on the proven concepts that everyone in a community has a role to play in poverty reduction.

This would be an excellent resources to bring into the school for a staff meeting.

http://circlesgw.ca/bridges-out-of-poverty/