SAUSD's Amplifying Leadership Podcast

12. Roots of Resilience: Strengthening Families and Communities, Part 1

• Bianca Barquin • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Unlock the secrets to building a thriving educational community with Lisa Solomon and Elisa Briseño-Sandoval, the trailblazing leaders of the FACE team at Santa Ana Unified School District. Our conversation is a celebration of engagement, uncovering the innovative strategies that are connecting schools with families and community partners alike. Discover how the FACE team is championing parental voices, ensuring their inclusion in the decision-making fabric of their children's education, and seamlessly weaving the Eight Dimensions of Wellness into the heart of their programs.

Step into our collaborative learning space as we illuminate the cultural wealth and aspirational strength that parents contribute to the educational ecosystem. By launching a bilingual podcast, the FACE team is not only meeting the community's needs but is also co-creating a platform for parents to expand their advocacy skills and enhance students' outcomes. Listen to a powerful narrative that demonstrates the transformative impact of empowering families, fostering belonging, and the ongoing dedication required to ensure every voice is heard and valued within our schools.

Visit us at our Buzzsprout site for more ways to listen, links to our social media sites and any referenced materials, and complete transcripts of our full-length episodes: https://bit.ly/SAUSDAmplifyingLeadership

Bianca Barquin:

Welcome to another episode of SAUSD's Amplifying Leadership. I'm your host, Bianca Barquin, and today we have a very special episode. Joining us in the studio are our amazing Director of Family and Community Engagement, Lisa Solomon, and Elisa Briseño- Sandoval, our remarkable FACE Coordinator and product of SAUSD. Today we're diving deep into the world of family and community engagement and the transformative journey it's taken over the past year. So let's get started. Welcome, Lisa and Elisa. It's wonderful to have you both here.

Lisa Solomon:

Thank you for having us, Bianca. We're super excited to be here.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

Thank you so much, Bianca, for having us here. It's great to be able to share with our families and our community all the great work that Family and Community Engagement is doing.

Bianca Barquin:

Awesome. So let's kick things off. To start, for those listeners who might not be familiar with our amazing FACE team Lisa, what role does the FACE team play here at SAUSD and within our larger community?

Lisa Solomon:

I think our FACE team plays a huge role and in different capacities. I feel like we're here to empower our families, to make sure that people's voices are heard, including community members, students, families, parents, and then also our role is to make sure, too, that we're making that strong connection between a school, the community partners and the families that we have. We focus on the strengths that our families bring out. We've been focusing a lot on cultural wealth, making sure that we're tapping into that. We also want to make sure that we're creating networks where people are learning to support each other. We're building strength and capacity within not just families but also staff, where people are taking on stronger leadership roles and we're building leaders that will go out and help to make our community a better place, advocate for services and programs, and also share what they have within them with everyone else.

Bianca Barquin:

Thank you, Lisa. Now let's expand on this a little bit. Can you tell me about the journey of revitalizing the FACE team and how you've aligned your core values and mission with SAUSD Board priorities?

Lisa Solomon:

I think we've also done this in a lot of different ways. Family and Community Engagement is a board priority, but it goes back to are we looking at the funds of knowledge that our families have and are we building on those strengths that the families have? So that's where we're starting. We've gone back and revisited our core values, not just as a FACE team, but we've also brought parents into that process. Then we've reestablished a mission and a vision for not just FACE, but even for our entire district. We made sure that we came together with district personnel those teachers, students, and parents at the table to help reestablish a new vision for us.

Lisa Solomon:

So the work that we're doing isn't about just FACE. It's about the work that we're doing with everyone and it's the work that everybody in SAUSD is doing to make sure that we're all part of Family and Community Engagement. It's not just one department, it's not just one person. It's about all of us working together to help empower our families. So we've reestablished a vision.

Lisa Solomon:

We've provided additional trainings, professional developments, but I think the most important thing that we have done is we've made sure that parents are at the table when we're making decisions. Parents are at the table when we're establishing and designing parent workshops, parent trainings, parent academies, as we like to call them. We've really made sure that parents' voices are heard. Then also, we've had a focus on even helping parents to see the cultural wealth that they have inside of them. So we've been working on, in Spanish, las riquezas que tenemos adentro de nosotros. There's so much that families already come with, there's so many strengths, so much that they can offer to help not only themselves be successful, but to help our community be successful. And then, of course, what we focus on in Santa Ana helping our students to be as successful as possible.

Bianca Barquin:

It's really true, Lisa, as I watch you and the team all over the district, you're everywhere, one. But really thinking about what you said and thinking about the work we did around vision, mission, values, it was beautiful to see parents as co-designers right alongside us and that shared decision making. Super powerful. And, to be honest with you, it was our parents' voices and our students' voices that were the most compelling in doing this work, so I'm super appreciative. Now tell me how do the Eight Dimensions of Wellness and the Five Protective Factors fit into your team's vision? First of all, what is it, in a simplified way, and how does it fit into that vision?

Lisa Solomon:

With the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, we're looking at all areas of well-being that a person would need to be successful in life in general. So those eight areas are social, environmental, physical, emotional, and they separate social and emotional because there's an aspect in how we interact with others and then there's an emotional with understanding ourselves and who we are, what we're feeling, how we deal with those emotions. There's vocational and, of course, there's intellectual, which is the academic component as well. So we focus on those eight areas and how we're developing our programming for parents, how we're working with parents on meeting their needs and what they need. It's like looking at the whole child, but we're looking at the whole person. So it helps not only the children but it also helps the families. When you have these eight areas that are strong, it helps you to be more successful and focused as you're moving forward. So it's been a huge part of our professional development.

Lisa Solomon:

When we're looking at the Five Protective Factors, there's five protective factors that you can look at. I'm going to just talk about a few of them: social connections, parent resiliency, and also knowledge, right, parent knowledge, making sure that they understand that we all know the school systems, that we all know what a child's development is like, what we should be looking for. So, by strengthening those specific areas, the social connections that we make, the knowledge of parenting and child development, and by knowing how to connect to resources and being resilient, that's what helps to strengthen a family. So then, beyond, if we're here or not, if they have a person or not, they build that within themselves.

Lisa Solomon:

So, when we look at those five protective factors, that's what we're trying to work on and build for our families and our students, in order to make sure that we have, at the end, positive outcomes and once again I'm going to say it yes, for our students. We want our students to be successful, but we also want our families to be successful and, beyond that, our entire community to make it all a better place. So we've focused our trainings, our professional developments, around these areas. They've helped establish a framework as we're moving forward, and it's something that I think will help to build that resilience within parents. When you focus on those eight dimensions, they're looking for strategies, they've got ideas, and then they're sharing them out. So, on top of it, we're building leadership that carries that forward.

Bianca Barquin:

It makes me really think about our community, school's work, and I don't think people realize just how much time a child spends outside of school. So working with our families, really advocating for our community, has always been part of the culture here in SAUSD. We're fortifying and strengthening that through FACE's vision, right, and how it aligns to the Board priorities, the Graduate Profile and everything else that we do. So thank you. Now, Elisa, I'd like to turn to you for a second. How has the role of FACE specialists evolved and what are some of the strategies you've employed to engage families in the community this year?

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

So, with Lisa's vision and the alignment that we've had in the department, we've really restructured the way that FACE specialists are now really supporting our district-wide efforts, as well as our liaisons at the school sites.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

So some of the things that we've been working on and really realigning is how can we, as the FACE specialist leadership team and specialists, really model for our liaisons, what we would love for them to be having at their school sites, and some of these efforts have been, for example, the book club, which we had amazing participation from our families, and it was just so empowering to be reading with our families and our students and having these wonderful juicy conversations about how their culture matters, how they matter, how their experiences matter, and this is something that we would love to have our liaisons start leading at the school sites.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

Something else that we are working on right now is and it's going to be exciting is Sharing Our Stories and creating a book, you know, with our cultural stories, with our assets and our lens and everything our families bring to the table in terms of their value systems, and this is another area where we would love to have this happening at the school sites and really see our liaisons leading this work with our families and sharing with them everything that they bring to the table. And some of the other areas, too, are more like on the structural side, like how can we connect more with our families as it relates to potentially home visits? What are some of the good strategies that we can implement as we're looking at our absenteeism at the school sites and where some of our families potentially may need some additional support or resources to ensure that our students are here and learning every single day?

Bianca Barquin:

Amazing. So I want to go back to the book clubs. So tell our listeners just who's helping to guide this work. A little birdie told me that you have an award-winning author that's actually working with our families. So who would that be?

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

So we actually just had a book club on Efron Divided. The author is Ernesto Cisneros and he's one of our amazing teachers at Mendez and it was just so beautiful to see him sharing his thought process as he was writing the book, his experiences, the experiences of the students, the experiences of potential mentors that he had, and note page 11, Mss Solomon is actually in there and she is referenced back as one of our amazing, amazing teachers, staff, supporter of our community, and it was just so powerful to see our families, through that angle and lens, also have the opportunity to reflect themselves on their own experience in topics such as being undocumented, deportation, cultural assets and how we value them and their experiences, and just really reflecting, sharing that with their students and then being able to see that something such as literacy, which is something that we're constantly pushing forward, and more reading and focusing the family on that, could be actually a really powerful tool to have better communication and dialogue with your students.

Bianca Barquin:

I think it's going to be amazing and I'm actually super excited to see what the culmination of all of this is that product, right, that book that families actually create. So you'll have to invite me to your culminating, or last actual book club session. So another question for you, Elisa. Can you share a success story that embodies the impact of the FACE team's work in the community? I know you shared the work that you all are doing in regards to the book club, but is there anything else you'd like to share?

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

Yes, definitely. So what we see with Family and Community Engagement is that this is really a long-term approach and it's something that it's not achieved overnight. It's something that takes many years to really be able to see those positive outcomes and what we're really trying to achieve, which is, of course, academic success but also socio- emotional well-being. So for us, we've seen some beautiful stories of some of our families and some of them being at Madison working with Ms. Solomon closely, because I think Ms. Solomon has really led the vision of family engagement even before she took on this role as a director. I always tell her she's a perfect person for this job because she has the heart and the passion.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

But we see the outcomes in those families that are now in the journey of being parent leaders, district leaders, participating in the mission, vision, values of the work and being able to really own their voice and say I know what's best for my kids, I know what's best for my school site, I know what's best for my community and I'm here because I want them to also be reflected upon when we're making big decisions in the district.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

And so it's taken Lisa years, you know, working our families and giving them that voice and some of the things that she was able to offer that I think has made it so powerful for them is parenting classes, ESL classes, high school diploma opportunities, mentorship, and you see that in their kids. Like when you meet their kids, you can see, you know that their parents have become these parent leaders, that they have these high expectations, that we are there as a community to support them and that for them, their future is going to be brighter, because it's not just one person, but it's a whole district and community supporting them and believing in their future.

Bianca Barquin:

I think that's a beautiful thing. We truly recognize our parents as partners in this work, right, and I think that's so, so, very important. So thank you. Now, Lisa, hmm... I understand that you're also starting a podcast aimed at parents, mirroring the format that we have here. Can you share your vision for the podcast and how you plan to engage your audience, and can you tell us, sneak peek, what's the title of your podcast?

Lisa Solomon:

Yes, I'm super excited about the podcast and a little nervous too, because it's new for me and our upcoming podcast is going to be called Better Together, Mejor Juntos, because everything that we do, when we do it together, it always comes out a lot better. When we include our families, when we include our community partners, it just is stronger, it's more powerful, it has a greater impact and we've noticed that too, not even just with our families and our community partners, but even with our departments, as we all come together to help support families and strengthen these relationships and strengthen, like, student success as well, focus on that, we've also been able to by being together just, I want to say we knock it up a notch so it just becomes to the umpteenth degree. We like to be a little bit extra in FACE, so we do like to take it to the next level. And our podcast is going to serve as, like, a platform for parents, where you're going to hear their voices and it's going to be on some of the same topics that you've touched on, community schools, we want to focus on cultural wealth, making sure the importance of us identifying what we carry with us, the strengths that we have, so then we can share them out with others, because that will only make us stronger and better as a community. We're going to focus on family and community engagement, on different community partnerships that we have, community schools and also all the programs and services we have in Santa Ana. It's going to give opportunities for parents and community partners to have a voice, as well as for everyone to learn about all the amazing things that we do in Santa Ana Unified.

Lisa Solomon:

I've been here 34 years, Bianca, and it just seems to get better and better and better what we offer, what we do for our parents and how we're sharing these like learning experiences together. We're all learning and growing together and I want people to hear that like and to know this is Santa Ana, this is what we do in Santa Ana and this is what we do right for our kids, for our families, and for our entire community, just to make the world a better place. I'm also very proud to say that our podcast is going to be in both English and Spanish, so parents, everyone will hopefully be able to understand the information that we're sharing, and it's also going to be based on feedback from parents and partners. What is it that they want to hear? We want to be responsive to our community's needs, and we're going to be able to co-design this podcast with them.

Bianca Barquin:

That's what I was going to ask you. Actually, it was more about co-design, too, and feedback. I've received a lot of feedback which has helped me adjust content. It's helped us adjust episode length, all of these things. I was wondering if you were going to co-design the experience with your parents.

Lisa Solomon:

Yes, we definitely will.

Bianca Barquin:

Okay, perfect. All right. Now let's talk about some of the core areas FACE has been focusing on, like parent input and capacity building. Elisa, can you expand on how these areas are being developed and the kind of impact they have?

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

Yes, definitely, Bianca. I think for us it's really important and this is something that even we have to work on is making sure, every time we have some sort of decision, some sort of feedback, something that we're looking at building or working on, such as our, like, our workshops in the future, that we're always bringing in our parents and bringing in groups of parents to talk to us about what would they like to see in parent workshops. Opportunities such as extended learning. What is it that they want to see in programming in extended learning? Opportunities such as how do we better support your student in, like, the LCAP process, having our parents, you know, really understand that their voice matters and that what they have to say is very valuable.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

So we can make sure that we're structuring our systems and our approaches in a way where it's going to actually support them and their students. And some of the other things you know that we will be doing in the future in terms of the capacity building district-wide, because we know, on our end, when teachers go into their training, for a good part of our teachers family and community engagement is not a part of their coursework. So we know that it's not because of a lack of wanting to do it. It's more than anything because they haven't been trained. And what are those strategies? What are their approaches? How can we support them to make sure that it's being done in the classroom and it doesn't feel like something added on, rather something that's going to support them and help their students. So for us, it's also working closely with our staff and helping them understand you know, how family engagement is going to improve student outcomes and what are those strategies that have already been proven in other areas that are going to support our students the best?

Bianca Barquin:

That is really compelling and it's something we don't always think about, right, so I applaud the work that you all are doing to really help build capacity in everyone. Tell me a little bit about the challenges and successes in increasing parent input in community voice.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

I think some of the biggest challenges that we face on our our lens and angle is not necessarily that our schools are not open, you know, to our families, but our families don't feel that sense of belonging, like they're a part of the school.

Elisa Briseño-Sandoval:

They think my world is in my home and outside of the school. The students' world is inside of the school with the teacher. So on our end, really it's bridging that gap and bringing our families together into the school sites in a welcoming environment where the families think like there's a space for me here, there's a place where I belong, there's a place where I can have an open dialogue and communication with my front office, with my teacher, with my counselor, with my principal, with anyone on site. And I know that we are going to have a relationship and that we're really going to be working on together best student outcomes for students. And so I think this is definitely one of the areas of opportunity that we have on our end is to relook at the level of engagement at each school site, see some of the practices that they've had in the past, and how can we improve the environment to make sure that it's conducive of building relational trust and really building that sense of commitment to each other and we're all in together on supporting our students.

Lisa Solomon:

And part of building capacity within Santa Ana Unified, what we focused on through FACE, you're going to hear the words a lot from me: cultural wealth. Now what does that mean? It means that it's also building a confidence within our parents so then they can advocate, that we don't need a degree to be able to advocate or fight for our children. We have so many things within us and when you're looking at cultural wealth, and it all does come from a study, it's all based on off of our, life experiences. Our parents have aspirational wealth. They have dreams and goals. A lot of them came to this country because they wanted a better life for their children, for themselves.

Lisa Solomon:

That's one type of capital that we have, but a lot of times we don't realize that that's capital. We have what they call familial capital, which is everything that our mothers and grandmothers taught us, all the traditions that we have. We bring that to the table, so it's knowing that I have all this richness inside of me. I have navigational capital. I know how to navigate systems. I knew how to navigate my way to a new country, number one. I did it, so I can tell people about my experiences and others can learn.

Lisa Solomon:

I know how to navigate a medical system. I know how to get my kids to the doctors and the services they need. Parents have so much within them, but we're building capacity in them, seeing that confidence and gaining that confidence and bringing it out. So then they can also be leading these trainings. They're the ones that can be leading the movements, advocacy to provide more services and programs, and then you truly know, once you recognize this is what I have, I also have a voice, so I should be standing up for my kids, for our programs, for what we need in Santa Ana.

Bianca Barquin:

So I see this, well in a multitude of ways, but I see parallel tracks, right, because it's systems work that we're doing. Not only are we working with our families to help them recognize the assets, strengths, gifts that they have within themselves and the wealth of knowledge and experience that they bring to the table, but we're also working within the educational system, within SAUSD, to make sure that every school understands deeply that they have a seat at the table too, right, and that's part of our community schools work, that this is about shared decision making, shared leadership and us working together as a team to improve outcomes for our kiddos, right?

Lisa Solomon:

Yes, definitely, and it goes back to our vision for FACE too, Bianca, that we want our families to have a seat at the table. We want voices to be heard, for them to feel like I belong here and I have something to say and I can advocate for my child, because I have all this wonderful, rich experience that I can also share.

Bianca Barquin:

Beautiful.

Voiceover:

Hey, there Amplifiers. Our amazing Face team has more transformative work to share with you in the second part of this episode. Join us next week to hear the rest of our conversation with FACE Director Lisa Solomon and FACE Coordinator Elisa Briseño-Sandoval. See you then.