FCSP Approach to Adult Learning

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - W.B. Yeats

At its core, family-centered services represents a spirit, attitude or relational stance from which workers approach their work. We seek to foster that spirit in adult learners by applying to them the same values and commitments that guide our work with families.

Learning Conversations

Our trainings are neither basic downloads of expert knowledge from facilitators, nor simply discussion groups for the sharing of participant wisdom. Rather they are a collaborative environment where we develop shared knowledge through learning conversations. We view "learners" as active participants who already hold a great deal of knowledge, skill and experience and "teachers" as facilitators with both practical content and particular expertise in helping learners explore their own best practices and articulate their underlying organizing principles. Throughout, we balance organized structure with the flexibility and responsiveness of emergent design.

Active, Experiential Education

Our approach is to "teach from the inside out." We take learners through a three-part process designed to engage them as active participants in their own learning. We begin by creating dialogue around why participants have come to the particular training. This helps orient both teachers and participants to the learning goals for the day, which we believe can and should originate with the learners. Then we engage participants in experiential exercises that create opportunities for them to develop an intimate feel for new ideas and practices. These exercises are followed by group reflection and discussion on what has been learned from the exercises and how that learning can be concretely applied to participants' own work settings.

Uncovering Participants' Best Work

Our teaching is strongly influenced by a process called "appreciative inquiry." We connect with participants to discover their best moments in challenging situations and use those moments as a foundation to develop an inspiring vision of the possibilities in their work. We examine with participants the values and hopes that make this vision personally relevant and help them distill that vision into concrete organizing principles that can flexibly guide their work. This process allows us to help participants integrate their own best practices with "state of the art" theories and practices and demonstrate how this learning process can be integrated into their daily work.