Throughout the semester in my SOCL-306: Stress and Crisis in Families class, I got to participate in creating a parent resource with my peers for the local HeadStart programs in Farmville, Virginia. The biggest thing I learned from this project is that it is vital to do research before beginning a project. Prior going into this, I knew little about what a parent/guardian of a preschooler needed to know. I did not know the hardship parents faced and what resources would be useful to them. After reviewing literature, I was better prepared and educated on the information to aid in creating a parent resource with my peers. We all collaborated to create this project. Our professor spilt us into groups and each team was assigned a different task. When working in these groups, I enhanced my communication skills collaborating with classmates that had strong opinions. There were instances we found ourselves compromising or having long discussions on what the team thought best.
While creating a resource for a program that deals with parents and socioeconomic status (HeadStart is a federally funded program), I realized it was important to watch my language and tone when writing. We did not want parents thinking we were critical of their parenting and accusing them of doing a poor job, but rather, utilize this as a resource/tool that can help them as a parent. So, when picking out the activities for our toolkit, we had to be mindful of the resources we were asking of the families. We had to switch to a different perspective so we could make the best, cost effective resource for these parents/guardians. This resource can be so helpful to parents. It is something small and does not require much time to read through. This allows parents to efficiently use this resource. It is eye appealing and colorful, making it visually appealing. It includes information on self-care, activities to do their children, how to manage children’s behavior, and key childhood developmental milestones.
For my personal contribution and role on the team, I felt like I naturally took on the leadership role. Not many of my peers were stepping up when first handed this assignment, so I took the initiative and began structuring our future steps. I was the middle point to make sure everyone thoughts and ideas were heard. When people had different ideas, I tried to propose something where everyone would be satisfied, not wanting to leave anyone out. I had to be mindful when trying to explain my ideas, not wanting to take away from someone else’s idea. I know I sometimes struggled in trying to conceptualize others’ ideas, so I had to respectfully communicate I am not understanding and if they could explain it another way. Then when we started combining groups, I became more of the creative mind. This is where we began putting our information into an appealing format and generating AI images. At times our group found ourselves at a roadblock, spilt in a decision. This led to the group becoming silent, and I would speak up, trying to get everyone back on the same page and moving forward. With this being my first experience working with this many peers on a project, it really helped me grow in my leadership and communication skills.
Overall, I believe this parent resource turned out very well and will prove to be a beneficial resource for these parents/guardians. The biggest strength to this project was the content. Everyone put a lot of effort into their literature review which enables us to produce strong, informational content in this parent resource. The activities and strategies we listed had data to support on why this is a beneficial activity to do. The only critique I have is the process in which we did this. As I alluded to previously, we had many individuals working on this project. Design elements were a struggle, having multiple groups doing different aspects of the group created inconsistent pages. For future recommendations, I would suggest this project having more direct team roles and a smaller group in charge of aesthetics while the rest produce the information needed. I think this would prevent less conflict and allow for more time to go into the content into the resource rather than the visual appeal. Both are very important just could provide for a better use of group time.
Link to Parent Resource Project Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tjQBO0Li_7oGffeG2vNGueoAcclp5LsD/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103147926573254787909&rtpof=true&sd=true