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29 February
NO 1271
Meaning-making
How does one build community? How can a community of practitioners come together in a way that builds on the strength of commonality? These were the types of questions which led us all to an old estate: one hundred of us, from diverse locations and services coming together, searching to find a connecting link which would help us in our quest to become a `community of practice'.
Such a gathering needs a focus and the organisers (Max Smart and Linda Cullen) decided that one way to help us all come together was to focus on some aspect of our helping philosophy which we might share across areas of practice. It was hoped that, by coming together around some common values and beliefs, this divergent group of professionals might find a common link which would move us a step forward in becoming a community of practice. So, for two days in September, 2004, residential care workers, managers, Who Cares?, Scotland workers, and academics gathered at Carberry Towers to participate in a workshop facilitated by Thom Garfat. This was the first time in recent memory, and perhaps the first time ever in Scotland, that a workshop of this size was conceived and delivered at a grass roots level.
The two days centred on the concept of 'meaning-making', or more specifically, how young people and staff make sense or meaning of their experiences. As Garfat (2004) has argued, perhaps `there is nothing more important than this process of meaning making,' for `it is only when the worker attends to how meaning is construed... that she can begin to understand the young person and his or her behaviour' (Garfat, 2004, pp.9-10).
The process of meaning-making is central to the process of intervention in Child and Youth Care practice. Attending to and understanding our own process as well as that of the people with whom we work helps us to understand our responses to one another. In understanding the process, we create the opportunity for different interpretations and, therefore, different responses to one another. (Garfat, 2004, p. 15)
In addition to exploring the concept of meaning-making and its relevance to practice, we discussed how we could carry forward the learning and momentum generated by these two days.
One of the ways we chose to carry the momentum forward was to invite participants to write a short narrative of their experience of the workshop, and the meaning it held for them. For, as Krueger has said, `The way we make meaning of our developmental interactions is often best understood and portrayed in a short story, essay, film, portraiture, painting or other forms of expression that contextualize the experiences, and gives voice to those who might otherwise have been excluded.’ (Krueger, 2005).
LAURA STECKLEY AND MAX SMART
Steckley, L. and Smart, M. (2005). Two days in Carberry: A step towards a community of practice. Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, 4, 2. Aug/Sep 2005. pp. 53-54.
REFERENCES
Garfat, T (2004). Meaning-making and intervention in Child and Youth Care practice. Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care. 3, 1, pp. 9-16.
Krueger, M. (2005). The seventh moment. CYC Online: Reading for Child and Youth Care people. 74, March 2005. Retrieved September 2005 from https://www.cyc-net.org/CYC-Online /cycol-0305-krueger.html
