Sharing isn't Just for Kids: The Power of Peer-to-Peer Program Collaboration

“How much time do you spend training your classroom facilitators?”

“How do ensure your program is delivered with fidelity?”

“How do you find money for professional development?”

These may seem like probing questions from a potential funder, but instead of testing for the authenticity of grant claims, these questions came from leaders of community-based organizations that work with Communities In Schools of Chicago. And, they were aimed at peers who also work in classrooms.

The power of peer-to-peer conversation is evident everywhere you look in the education world, but this school year CIS of Chicago learned exactly how impactful it could be for people working in health education. During the 2015-16 school year, we hosted three sessions – working groups, we called them – where representatives of more than  20 organizations offering school-based programs assembled for conversations on effective, quality programs in health education.

CIS has offered professional development opportunities to community-based organizations who are our partners for longer than a decade, ranging from classroom management to program assessment and literacy integration. Among the feedback we’ve gotten over the years, our partners have expressed again and again how valuable it was just to be among other organizations working in schools. These comments speak to the relative isolation that our partners’ program managers and facilitators feel. For many of our partners, their work in schools is one (often small) arm of the work their host organization does. While their mandate of delivering good information to students and schools is clear, how to do it effectively may not be so clear-cut.

Consequently, once we created The Elements of Effective Health Education Programs, we wanted to share the report with partners in a way that would connect the Elements with real-world application. For a discussion in May about supporting classroom facilitators, for example, several of our partner organizations shared what they did to ensure that their staff were delivering effective programs and growing professionally. Peer Health Exchange, the Respiratory Health Association, and Girls in the Game were among those groups whose representatives shared how they go about training, assessing and giving feedback to the people who deliver their programs to students.

While the Elements highlight the need for well-trained facilitators who can create a positive classroom environment, be relevant and accessible to students, and communicate program objectives, putting that into practice can be daunting. Cue the power of peer-to-peer sharing! Presenters were able to share how they identified the most important attributes of their facilitators and then worked backwards to ensure that their trainings were focused on those attributes. Lastly they were able to show how they designed observation forms and feedback sessions to reflect what they most cared about. For some of our partners, this through-line was a new and powerful tactic for facilitator support and it came from the very people who were doing it in real life.

Over the years, we’ve heard that our training work at CIS of Chicago has changed the way organizations – our partners – work in schools, and we’re grateful for the credit. Still, as much as we’ve helped our partners to change and grow, they’ve done the same for us. Each day, we’re learning more about what it takes to make an impact in our schools and alongside our students.