Getting Ahead

New programs at HSSD, CMS hope to break cycle of poverty

Two school districts in Garland County are partnering with Cooperative Christian Ministries and Clinic to provide Getting Ahead classes.

At Cutter Morning Star, high school students are able to take a Getting Ahead course tailored to students and, beginning in 2019, Hot Springs School District is partnering to offer the program to parents within the district free of charge.

According to Lynn Blanken-

ship, executive director of CCMC, both partnerships began with a collaboration between Ouachita Children’s Center and CCMC. The original funding came from the Community Development Block Grant fund with the goal to make a difference in the Hot Springs community by focusing on the younger generation.

“CCMC has had four years’ history with delivering the Getting Ahead curriculum in several different venues,” including churches, the housing authority, Garland County Detention Center and Ouachita River Unit Correctional Facility, Blankenship said in an email. “This experience made us a good partner with OCC to work with another audience that can benefit from the Bridges Out of Poverty constructs.”

Blankenship said CCMC, OCC and Suicide Prevention Allies brought national presenter and author of “The R Rules,” Elizabeth Souther, to Hot Springs for a certification workshop in August 2018 to introduce Garland County school personnel to the program and certify facilitators to take the program back to their schools.

“The administrators of both CMS and HSSD met with the author to discuss the work,” she said. “As a result, Cutter Morning Star made a commitment to deliver ‘The R Rules’ program throughout all of the homeroom high school classes beginning in January 2019. Hot Springs School (District) will work from another angle in that they are identifying parents of children that may benefit from a Getting Ahead class.”

Natasha Lenox, principal of Hot Springs Junior Academy, completed the training and said the workshops provide opportunities for parents to assess their current situation, their current resources, the impact of poverty on the community and leave with a personal plan based on individual goals set. Classes at the junior academy will begin Jan. 21 and be held once a week.

“The group discussions in a comfortable setting, free from judgment is amazing,” Lenox said. “The facilitators are volunteers that in many instances remain in contact with graduates to provide access to continued support and tools for participants continued growth toward exiting poverty.”

Both sets of the curriculum are based on the principles set forth by the Bridges Out of Poverty initiative, which Blankenship said provides an outline for a successful transition to self-sufficiency and a new future story for communities.

“This is accomplished through a programmatic approach delivered to individuals,” Blankenship said. “The programs all begin with the BOP constructs and principles of engaging the individuals (investigators) to create their own solutions by identifying where they are today and then their new future stories. The curriculum for adults is called, ‘Getting Ahead’ and is offered in independent community groups of 12-16 adults and in prison/jail settings in addition to being offered at the workplace. The youth version of the curriculum is the ‘R Rules’ and is based on the same principles.”

Both Getting Ahead and The R Rules put the investigator in charge of their own learning, she said. This is different from the “righting reflex” of many middle class individuals and organizations that try to quickly fix, or make right, things for people in poverty.

Blankenship said investigators in both age groups “deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

“Many programs teach the ‘logic of the system’ and attempt to bring people into conformity to the system. The goal of GA and the R Rules is not to make people compliant workers, employees, or students; it is to give them tools to think through and create what works for them,” she said.

“GA and R Rules work because of sequencing/reinforcement and deepening of learning in an agenda-free, safe, and neutral environment. Typically organizations teach by telling and providing ‘the’ answers. Instead, GA and R Rules provide the opportunity for the investigator to learn what will work best for himself/herself. We define poverty as a lack of resources — not just financial resources, but a whole spectrum of resources required for success in school and in life. Our work is about changing lives, not just learning new subject matter.”

These programs have always been offered to participants free of charge, but this can only be accomplished with the help of grants, Blankenship said.

“For instance, the CMS project is funded with the CDBG grant and a private donor in collaboration with OCC,” she said. “The ultimate goal is that the schools will adopt the program curriculum into their standard curriculum with the only ongoing cost to include the purchase of student books.”

The programs help identify roadblocks in the Hot Springs community in order to help investigators transition to self-sufficiency. One of the issues discussed in every Getting Ahead class, she said, is the community’s limited public transportation offering.

“We are looking forward to extended bus hours beginning 2019 that will help a large segment of the Hot Springs’ workforce with transportation to and from employment,” Blankenship said.

Lenox said Hot Springs School District hopes to provide incentives to parents to help them commit to the program.

“Providing on-site free child care is one barrier for attendance we would like to erase,” she said in an email. “We will also provide snacks, food, since this is an evening event and many parents may leave work and immediately attend. In keeping with the premise of the Getting Ahead in a just Getting By World format, we will seek sponsors from the community in order to provide incentives to help participants with those three essential needs — food, shelter, clothing. These small incentives are given at the end of each session.”

She said the district is looking into grant funding to be able to provide this support to parents in the community.

Lenox said she is also meeting with Division 2 Circuit Court Judge Wade Naramore to share information about the program as a resource to parents.

“I want him to be aware that this opportunity is available to help parents and in turn, we hope to break the cycle of poverty,” she said.