One question seems to come up more often than any other as I talk with people about Plumfield’s work for homeless kids.

“You don’t charge anything?  Why not?”

Sometimes the question carries some suspicion, as in “What’s in it for you, then?”  Sometimes it’s a well-meaning question from someone who sees the value of what we bring and thinks there might be a “market” for it.  And sometimes it comes from people who think there might be a better way to raise money for the work than to rely on donations.

Here are some answers to the question:

1. The people we serve don’t have any money.  Not the kids, for sure, and not the organizations with whom we partner.  These people are overwhelmed already with doing everything they’re doing for homeless families — housing, feeding, clothing, and finding all kinds of services to help them get on their feet.  They do what they can for the children’s education, but they can’t juggle everything  the families need, and for the most part they rely on schools to pick up the ball labeled “Children’s Education.”  That would be fine, if the schools weren’t also overwhelmed.  It’s not working, and there’s no more money to go around.  Someone has to be willing to pick up that ball, without getting paid for it.
2. We believe in giving what we have.  Jesus made it abundantly clear that his disciples were to GIVE.  If we have two coats, one of them belongs to someone else.  If we have extra food, same deal.  (Luke 3:11).  What we have  is experience and knowledge around what works in tutoring homeless kids.  So that’s what we give.
3. It’s really not that expensive.  Giving away this knowledge, even these materials, doesn’t really cost that much.  It’s amazing that something so important is also so affordable.  This is well within the reach of ordinary people to provide.
4. If we charge for this — it won’t get done.  And it MUST get done.  One of Plumfield’s highest values in this work is: “Whatever it takes.

I’m combining our Wednesday “where” and Thursday “when” articles this week to bring you up to date on the Plumfield story and plans for the future.

As I was wrapping up my time in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, I found myself thinking, “Wow.  All this time and effort, to get ONE program started!  Hope it gets easier from here!”  And then I realized…we’re not just working in one program.

A little over a year ago, Plumfield was literally dead.  The Storyline conference provided a nationwide network of people excited about the work.  Because of that network (YOU!), and the contacts that have spun out of  it and come along side of it (YOU again!), Plumfield is providing help to several organizations across the country.

The Denver Rescue Mission was actually the first — they adopted many of our practices last summer, and they continue to call for consultation as they develop their program.  They’re currently looking at changes in their educational curriculum, and they’ll be ordering from a list I sent them last week.   When the books arrive, I’ll train their staff in how to use them.

Also last week, I began a conversation with an organization here in Denver that provides a wide range of services to homeless families, including after-school programs in public schools that serve homeless children!  They are in a leadership transition and looking for ways to make their programs more effective.   I’m offering them Plumfield’s help.  We’ll be meeting soon.

In Los Angeles:   Door of Hope has a sister program in Glendale, slightly larger than the one in Pasadena.  When I’m there in January, I’ll look into expanding Plumfield’s help to that program.  We’ve also made contact with several other places — those relationships just need to grow.  The need in Los Angeles is SO GREAT.  They have the largest population of homeless children in the entire country.  I understand now why we went there this year.

In Philadelphia, a group working with inner-city children recently used a Plumfield questionnaire to help them decide the direction of their after-school program.  Now we’re talking about how Plumfield can help them achieve those goals.

My local church has an ongoing relationship with folks at an American Indian reservation in Montana.  Apparently the schools are pretty sub-par and the children there are suffering because of it.  Yesterday our missions supervisor suggested that Plumfield go there.  Sounds right to me.

There are also possibilities in Pittsburgh, Portland and Indianapolis

The plan for 2012 is to continue to develop the relationships we’ve begun across the country, but to also bring more focus back here to Denver.   Because this is our home base, there are a lot of people here who want to help — and Denver has a huge population of homeless families.  Beginning in January, we’ll be approaching more local organizations about how we can help them improve the education of the homeless kids in their care, beginning with summer programs and/or the 2012/2013 school year.

In order to take what we have to more places and more kids, we need more and more people to join the cause.  Keep watching this space for specific ways you can get involved, and if you have any thoughts at all about how we can bring really effective education to kids affected by homelessness, use any of our contact information to jump into the conversation.  We need YOU!

It can be confusing.  There are lots of services out there for homeless folks, and for homeless children.  Yet we claim we’re trying to meet a need that isn’t getting met.  How can that be?  What’s the need?  And how is Plumfield proposing to meet it?

Starting this week, I’ll be blogging daily, using a “WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and HOW” structure.  Tuesdays are our “WHAT” days, and I’ll be unpacking more details as we go, but today I’ll give you an overview of Plumfield’s work with homeless kids and the people who serve them.  (For future reference, this overview can also be found on the “About Our Work” tab above!)

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Plumfield Learning Systems offers comprehensive, effective education to children who are or have been homeless.  We partner with organizations who are already serving the homeless, providing our services at no cost to the families or to the organizations.

The need

People who serve homeless families really wish they had the manpower, resources, time and energy to better serve the children’s education.   The vast majority of homeless children enter these programs at least a year behind in school, and most are much more behind than that.  Even if the children are enrolled in school, the schools struggle – and most often fail – to meet their needs.  The children continue to fail, and feel poorly about themselves and their abilities.  Eventually they give up and merely survive their education, instead of thriving.  This only perpetuates the problems of poverty and homelessness into the next generation.  

How it works 

We work with organizations who are already serving homeless kids: after-school programs, transitional housing programs, learning centers, etc.  We give what we have to offer at no cost to the partner organization or the families served:

• Consultation.  Through observation and conversation, we can help our partners discover what they need to develop their programs.
• Assessment.  We have several simple assessment tools we can use to find out how the children in the program are doing academically and suggest ways to help.
• Curriculum.  Through 20 years of experience, we’ve found materials that make a real difference.   Non-consumable/ reproducible, volunteer-friendly, “consecutive and concise,” the curricula we recommend are tried and true. We DO NOT PROFIT when you buy these materials, and where needed and possible we will help you raise the funds or even provide them for free.
• Behavior management system. Children affected by homelessness have special needs and behavior problems.  We have a system that helps them manage themselves, their time and their own behavior, freeing staff and volunteers to spend more time in positive interactions.

Partner organizations

There are a few things we ask of our partner facilities:

• A commitment to truly effective education solutions for homeless and at-risk children
• Flexibility – willingness to try something new and modify it as we discover better ways
• Access to a staff liaison so we can make sure we’re giving what
  the partner program needs
• A suitable space that can be set up for an effective program. (Multi-use rooms are fine.)
• Some storage space for equipment and materials
• Enough staff and volunteers to serve the children who attend (the ratio will depend on the kind of program you want).  Sometimes we can help recruit volunteers.

Volunteers

It takes all kinds of people to make our after-school programs run!  We need people to:

• Set up and serve snacks
• Create, set up and operate craft, game and play areas
• Monitor the playground  if one is available
• Monitor timed worksheets
• Check kids in and perform record keeping
• Run the reward store
• And, of course, we need people who enjoy teaching, to provide individualized teaching and tutoring . We will train these volunteers – no formal teaching education is required.

A few months ago my friend Laura Richardson told me she was going to produce her first CD.  I was so happy for her — doing what she knows she’s on the planet to do, and being who she is at her deepest core.

Then she told me she was going to make it a benefit for Plumfield.  I thought she meant a portion of the proceeds would go toward Plumfield’s work — one of those nice things people do, like a tithe.

Not so.  She meant ALL the proceeds.  I watched in amazement as people gathered around the project, some of them also friends of mine, some of them people I’d never met, even people Laura had never met before now.  They spent hours and hours in the studio, recording and refining the music.  They laughed and worked and blossomed in their Kingdom callings as musicians — and they did it all for free.

Of course, studio time isn’t free, and neither are printed CDs or packaging or a hundred other things that go into a project like this.  Laura and her husband fronted all the costs, cheerfully, as if it were something that anyone would do.  When the first CDs arrived a couple of weeks ago, I was stunned.  Even the CD packaging is a tribute to Plumfield and our work.

I would promote this project if it had nothing to do with Plumfield.  This, my friends, is what the Kingdom  looks like, on earth as it is in Heaven.  People using their gifts, growing in them, becoming more who they really are, creating beauty and dedicating it all to the cause of love — Jesus is smiling, I’m certain of it.

And the music is really beautiful, too.  I can’t believe I know these people.

You can sample the music and buy it at CDbaby.com.  Search for “Laura Richardson,” or follow this direct link:

GRACE FULL CD

You can even get free gift-wrapping for holiday gifts.  Just sayin’.

If you’d rather not buy online, contact me at 720-329-7290 or plumfieldlearning@gmail.com.  I have some to sell!

So now I’m thinking: how can each of us use what we have, grow and learn, blossom in creativity and beauty and do it all for the cause of love?

You know what?  My church has an Etsy site where they’re selling handmade things this Christmas, so we can get back into our building after a year of building code problems.  Tonight I think I’ll make some earrings they can sell on the site.  Laura, you’ve inspired me.

Healthy snacks set up, waiting for the children to arrive

Friends, friends…WE DID IT!  Last week we implemented the changes you made possible at Door of Hope.  (Use this link to learn more about this wonderful place where people get off the streets and back on their feet because of love and grace!)

Door of Hope has offered an after-school program for some time to the children who live there, but it has been very chaotic and frustrating for the people running it.  Little or no academic progress was being made, and the children’s behavior was out of control.  They have a good supply of volunleers from a local college, but the volunteers found the program frustrating and felt ineffective when they came to help.

Geoff Martel, the director of the program, recognized something good when he heard about Plumfield’s systems.  He has adopted every recommendation I made, and as a result the program — after just a few days! — is vastly calmer, and we have been able to pull each child aside for an individual assessment of their academic needs.  The next step will be implementing individualized curriculum for each child!

Playdough Center -- see the pockets? Four children allowed at a time.

We face a challenge regarding the curriculum, and it has to do with volunteers.  Unfortunately, the volunteers don’t come until 4:00 (when most of the children would be done with their homework and the individualized work we give them), AND they will stop coming entirely from December 3 through mid-January because of their college schedules.  Next semester, we hope to have volunteers coming earlier, or perhaps two shifts of volunteers, 2:00 to 4:00 and 4:00 to 6:00.  Until then, we can assign supplemental work for the children who need it most, and we will probably start with a small-group session for the three adorable (but WAY BEHIND) Kindergarten girls in the program.

The only pictures I can share right now are those of the program being set up.   I hope it will at least give you an idea of how we help the children to manage their time and activity.  I do have pictures of the children and I’m DYING to show them to you, but Door of Hope’s policy stipulates “personal use only.”  I’m hoping I can get permission from the parents to share specific pictures, and I promise, the minute I do, I’ll send them along.  Count on it.

Volunteers clearing out a closet for the program's use -- it's blurry, but I had to give them a shout out!

So much goodness coming in the future, too!  I fly back to Denver on Friday and immediately (that afternoon!) have a meeting with the Denver Rescue Mission about continuing the development of their program.  And there’s an organization in Philadelphia I’ve been corresponding with — one I would LOVE to work with, because I adore these people and what they do!  They recently started an after-school program for the children in their community and immediately felt the need for help.  We’ll know more about our plans in a week or so.

And I plan to return to Door of Hope in January to give them more coaching and training and to adjust the program in practical ways after it has been operating a month or two.

We are doing it, friends.   Plumfield’s mission is being accomplished.  Hallelujah!