CLUES

I have recently begun volunteering at CLUES, which stands for Comunidades Latinos Unidos en Servicio (Latino Communities United in Service). It is an organization that works with Hispanic communities in the Twin Cities to provide culturally appropriate behavioral health and human services. I am working with the family services branch of the organization to provide childcare during a weekly parent education session at the Riverview West Side School of Excellence. This is a bilingual (Spanish and English) K-6 elementary school in Saint Paul’s West Side. The program offers Spanish-language meetings that focus on issues like school readiness, saving for college, and communication between families and schools. In order to provide incentive and make it possible for parents to participate in the program, dinner and childcare are offered. Through the Civic Engagement Center, several other Macalester students and I run the children’s’ activities for the evening. We facilitate activities in Spanish based on a suggested lesson plan provided by CLUES, which is designed to correspond thematically with the adult topic of the night. There are approximately 7-10 families and perhaps a dozen children, ranging from about a year old to upper-elementary school students.

I found the process for becoming a volunteer alarmingly simple. I emailed the issue coordinator for Spanish language service opportunities at the CEC and participated in an hour-long orientation run by CLUES staff that consisted largely of an introduction to the program and tour of the school. There did not appear to be any screening process; no one asked if I spoke Spanish or had experience working with children or teaching in any capacity; certainly no one ran a background check or requested references or even a resume. In all of the paid jobs I have held, and even a majority of volunteer commitments, there has been at least a semblance of an application process. Here’s why I find this so troubling: either CLUES is too underfunded/understaffed to more rigorously screen their volunteers (not a great situation but somewhat understandable), CLUES never thought of it (more concerning), or it does not occur to Macalester to make sure it is providing community organizations with competent, rather than simply willing, labor. Regardless of the source of this lapse, it reflects a lack of commitment to ensuring that the quality of services provided to this underserved communities is appropriate and that there persists a discrepancy between access to high quality childcare among parents who are not participating in supplemental after-school education session and those who are, suggesting a double-deficit system. However, while I do not know what the children for whom we are responsible or any of the other students at the school would otherwise be doing from 5-8 every Tuesday, I think that they could do far worse with their out-of-school time than to be left in the care of enthusiastic, if not particularly skilled, college kids.

This model attempts to facilitate a more positive experience for children within their microsystems, mesosystems, and macrosystems, and does a particularly good job improving relationships within the mesosytem. The program does integrate many levels of Bronfenbrenner’s ecosytem into its approach. As far as addressing the idea of developmental assets, the kids in the program are encouraged to explore their various interests through activities that attempt to reflect multiple intelligence theories about learning, as well as providing diverse opportunities for the kids to engage in physical activity, creative expression, and other areas in which they could develop competence. It also connects them to college students, though if only in a brief and superficial capacity, this relationship seems beneficial to their perception of adults as caring and sympathetic people who are invested in them. While it is fun for the kids, I feel like I might be getting more education out of the experience than they are.