When traveling around the country, delivering ABCD workshops, I often hear people say, “I’ve heard great ABCD stories but it all seems too big for my little community” or, “People aren’t interested, where do I start?”
I was reminded of this yesterday when wrapping up a 3 day Person-Centred, Community-Driven training for Early Linkers, (who work with families who have a child under 8 years of age, with a disability), when one of the participants asked how you link a family into community when the family says they have so much going on, in their own lives, that they don’t want to connect with other families.
My response was that we need to start where people are at! If a family, or an individual, is feeling overwhelmed or “stuck”, then we start with individual or family strengths!
Sometimes, it’s not about how many connections families have or social activities they are engaged in, it’s about listening to people and helping them to discover what they truly care about, enough to act upon.
It’s about the small steps! Supporting families to discover the wealth of untapped strengths that they already have is empowering and that moment of recognition when people discover they have a skill to share or an underlying passion to pursue can be transformative!
Then, over time, we can “lead by stepping back”, and support them to share their newly found talents, skills and passions with the wider community!
As my good mate Mike Green says, “Starting anywhere, leads everywhere!”
