The Black Mothers Forum is is an Arizona initiative designed to educate, organize, and take action to promote healthy mindsets and relationships to end the school-to-prison pipeline. This effort created small-facilitated learning environments to provide a more catered education opportunity to children who may have felt underserved by the public school system. Called micro-schools, classrooms of five to eleven children share a self-directed learning environment facilitated by two learning guides. A few months ago, thanks to a connection made by the Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith and Family, the Black Mothers Forum was able to offer Triple P courses to their learning guides.
While Triple P is typically intended for parents, the materials were fitting for the twelve community educators who attended, too. Kylie Chamblee, the Educator Coordinator, said the course supported facilitators to view behavioral challenges from the students’ perspectives. Chamblee went on to say, “Our model has a Montessori style of giving the children autonomy in their education. Triple P was a good stepping stool to utilize those tools and see how we can meet the students in the middle to support their positive, autonomous decisions.”
The Black Mothers Forum learning guides saw the value of using Triple P strategies as educators, and hope to offer Triple P training to parents of microschool students in the future.