Social Service 101 Syllabus
Part 1 of 2
This summer, I am mentoring two high school interns at the Family Resource Center in my town. Their main tasks are to sort donations and prepare materials for community distribution. It can be tedious, but also meditative.
In the spirit of reciprocity (and to keep us intentionally conversing and engaged), I assembled a syllabus to explore what social service, community-oriented work is and can be, deepen connections to local goings-on, and encourage creativity and curiosity.
We are halfway though the session, and I thought I’d share the syllabus and texts we’re working through. This is a living syllabus! Complete the program as it is or create your own intensive with this as a template (I would love if people shared what they added or changed). I print the materials so they can annotate and, as we go, I add items that relate to our conversations.
I’ve listed the texts in my recommended reading order and they are either linked below or in this CryptPad folder.
Week 1: Welcome to the Neighborhood!
Introductory conversation to gauge interns’ interests, review primary roles for the summer, and learn how the Family Resource Center and other basic-needs centers function in the community.
Learn what resources are available in our community and identify gaps in service; explore city commission committees (relevant to your interests) and agendas (to identify any items that may directly affect you or your kin); get focused on specific local news to combat the overwhelm of national doom scroll and find context and analysis that elucidate how larger issues affect you on a local level.
Readings:
(For privacy, I’ve omitted the location-specific sources we used.)
Public Library Community Resource Sheet
City commission agenda
Local news: Paywall-free city news, paywall-free state/county news, public radio.
Activities:
Poets Respond: Write a poem responding to a public event or news article
Examples: https://rattle.com/page/respond/
Get to know your neighbors 1: Take note of three plants or animals that you encounter organically in your day-to-day life. Record their common and scientific name, their origin story, and their function in our ecosystem.
Week 2: Building Resilience
Learn how historical, collective, and individual trauma affects relationships, health outcomes, and self-concept.
Use resource sheets and questionnaire to assess and cultivate relational awareness and self-empowerment.
Readings:
“We Are All Very Anxious,” Institute for Precarious Consciousness
“A new style of precarity-focused consciousness raising is needed.”
Link to full text. Assigned reading excerpt: Section 7, p. 8-11
“Conceptual Model of Historical Trauma: Implications for Public Health Practice and Research,” Michelle M. Sotero, University of Nevada
“…developing intervention programs that integrate theories of historical trauma, community capacity and community empowerment… designed to be holistic, culturally relevant, and respectful of indigenous self-understanding of historical trauma and its impact on community health. Symptoms of historical trauma—like diabetes, suicide, and domestic violence—are addressed from a different perspective and through a new paradigm different from traditional health programs that subscribe to Western belief systems and inherent dominant culture biases.”
Link to full text. Assigned reading: Full text and references section.
“Trauma Awareness presentation,” Alive and Well Communities
Distilled, less academic, community-education oriented presentation addressing public-private-communal-chronic trauma, Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) scores, and basic trauma-responsive principles.
Powerpoint printout in Drive. Assigned reading: p. 2-4, 6, 8-10, 14-15
“Healthy Relationship Sources and Tools for ALL,” Claire’s Community
Teen, Adult, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ Equality Wheel, Respect Wheel, Power & Control Wheel, and Advocacy Wheel. Signs of Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships, National Resource sheet.
I scanned a zine I had (in the Drive) for the interns, but I encourage you to engage with Claire’s Community resource page for broader and deeper resources on relationship violence prevention.
Activity:
Audre Lorde Questionnaire. Adapted from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” (1977). (Sheet in Drive)
What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”]
What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]
“What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after.]
If we have been “socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition”, ask yourself: “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” [So, answer this today. And every day.]
Week 3: Crafting Sustainable Futures
Learn about methodologies related to Organizing, Mutual Aid, Charity, Fundraising.
Readings:
“Native Organizing Before the Non-Profit Industrial Complex,” Madonna Thunder Hawk, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded
“We organized first, and then figured out how to make it happen. And we
seemed to get a lot more done than what people with funding and non-profits are getting done now.”
Link to full text. Assigned reading: p. 101-106
Mutual Aid, Dean Spade
“Working Together on Purpose; No Masters, No Flakes.” “Characteristics of Mutual Aid vs. Charity,” “Default and Alternative Approaches to Organizing Groups,” “Tendencies that Harm Groups and Alternatives,” “Qualities of Group Cultures,” “Basic Steps to Consensus Decision-Making,” “Leadership Qualities,” “Working Joyfully.”
Link to full text. Assigned reading: Charts 1-9.
“How to Raise Money For Amazing Causes You Care About,” Nicole Gulatz and Madi Weglarz
To me, fundraising is a big, scary, dirty necessary evils; this zine made fundraising feel digestible, straightforward, personal, and effectual on a variety of scales.
Remember (if you’re totally adverse to fundraising $$ or don’t have funds to give):
These methods can be applied to acquiring basic-needs material donations: food & water, office and distro supplies, direct impact items (related to the organization’s cause… dog food, children’s clothes, hygiene kits, etc).
Volunteering your time is perhaps the most valuable contribution you can make to an organization. Many organizations depend completely on “free” labor, valued at $26-35/hr.
I got my copy through a HumbleBundle zine package from Microcosm Publishing. I can share more or one can purchase here.
Activity:
Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective Pod Map
Reflect on who you can, would call upon in situations where you need help or support navigating harm, conflict, violence or abuse at an individual to systemic level.
“We believe that orienting from a place of growing pods can help us gradually move away from the structures that keep people isolated. In this way, building our pods is not only useful for ourselves and the people in our immediate circles, but has the potential to help build a network of pods that could support anyone experiencing violence.”
Link to activity. Similarly to Claire’s Community, I encourage you to explore the full BATJC catalogue of readings and toolkits related to Transformative Justice, Abolition, and Accountability/Repair.
Week 4: Practical Community Health
Resource and fact sheets to empower community members to respond to common medical crises and emergencies. Begin learning what we need to care for and accomdate ourselves-in-relation. Find additional resources and information at the parent websites for these handouts.
Readings:
Frostbite and Hypothermia resource sheets from the CDC and Canadian Frostbite Care Center
Hands-Only CPR fact sheet from the American Heart Association
Seizure First Aid from Epilepsy Foundation
Heat-Related Illnesses, Heat Rash to Heat Stroke from the CDC
Spot Strokes F.A.S.T. from American Stroke Association
Warning Signs of Heart Attack from American Heart Association
Preparing for and responding to Tornadoes, Wildfires, and Floods from the CDC
ALGEE Action Plan from Mental Health First Aid (this is the most in-depth/clear .pdf I could find free range, but I used a ALGEE MHFA Card from our community mental health center with contact information for local crisis lines.)
Olga Phoenix Self Care Wheel
Activity:
Create your own preventative care plan (Fillable sheet in Drive).
Care plans require resources (mostly time), (self) commitment, and (community) accountability; where can you find support in implementing your care plan?
Create an Emotional First Aid Kit.
Think back to the Lorde questionnaire and the daily tyrannies you swallow:
How do you cope? How do you recover or transform?
Are there any preventative care steps that are also useful in your First Aid Kit?
Alright, that’s part one! I’ll send out the second part soon. Comment or message me if you find this useful or interesting. Thinking of putting together a Black August syllabus… <3r
