York’s Faculty of Education in partnership with Education Involved Advocacy has been awarded a $5,000 Catalyst Grant from the York-TD Community Engagement Centre (CEC) to deliver a series of experiential learning/interactive workshops at the CEC for parents with students in the Black Creek/Jane-Finch community.
The Critical Issues In Education Parent Workshop series will be connected and rooted in pathways, student success, equity and inclusion, and parents in partnership.
“The grant will allow us to facilitate and foster Faculty-community partnerships with the Black Creek community,” said Lindsay LaMorre, Community Practicum coordinator in the Faculty of Education. “Our relationship with community is foundational to our Bachelor of Education program. We provide teacher candidates with opportunities to engage with community through an inquiry process that supports learning and builds reciprocal relations with communities and their schools.”
York teacher candidates will have the opportunity to co-plan and facilitate these parent-engagement workshops with staff from Education Involved Advocacy and the Faculty of Education.
The workshops will provide an experiential and interactive two-way learning environment for parents in the community and for York teacher candidates. The goal is to engage the parent community by providing access and support in the navigation of invaluable community supports and school resources. York teacher candidates will gain a better understanding of community collaboration and the importance of parent involvement in education.
“Participating in the workshop development and facilitation will be a great teaching and learning experience for our teacher candidates,” said LaMorre. “This is an opportunity for teacher candidates to engage with parents in the community to support student success. Teacher candidates will be able to build on these understandings to transfer a more organic knowledge into their future teaching practice.”
Small catalyst grants are one of the ways that the York-TD Community Engagement Centre (CEC) is working to deepen university-community partnerships in Jane-Finch.
For more information on catalyst grants, visit the York-TD Community Engagement Centre (CEC) website.