How to lead a skill share.

Skill Shares – a model that comes from the disability community that believes that all people have something to contribute. Unlike a traditional education model that would have a teacher and require students to listen, skill shares assume that processing out loud how to solve a problem, sharing ideas together about resources and what has worked for participants will often be more useful for people with common needs, disabilities or social economic backgrounds.

Skill Share Process:
1- Get feedback from the group about what kind of skill shares they would be interested in attending or leading.

2- Let the community know that you will be hosting a group on a topic suggested by them.

3- Center the group around a “How To” (ie a support group, how to read letters from the government, how to make tea, etc)

4- Open the group by briefly introducing yourself, and outlining the boundaries, how long the class will be and what will happen.
Example: Hi, my name is Hank Williams, I’m the staff person here at the garden. Today we’re having an addiction recovery support group. I’m an adult child of an alcoholic, addiction runs in my family, but I’ve never had to seriously struggle with addiction issues. I believe that because you have lived with addiction that you are the experts. You know what has worked for you and what hasn’t. In my own life, I find that I often learn a lot from hearing from other people’s experiences. So today, for the next 45 min, you can share what has worked, what hasn’t worked (because sometimes that’s more helpful to share), what is difficult and what you want to celebrate. My role in the group is to help maintain a safe space and to be a resource if you need it.

5- The facilitator can participate in the group (as is appropriate for the group and setting) and model participation in the group. Often sharing a story to answer a question gets the conversation started or helps people who are new to know what kind of answers you are looking for.

6- Ask the group: what has worked for you? Is there anything we should celebrate this week?

7- Ask the group: what have you tried that wasn’t as helpful as you hoped? And what’s hard for you about this topic?

8- Ask the group: What resources do you know about that can be helpful for others about the topic?

9- Ask the group: Are there any resources you need that would be helpful? This question can help create conversation when others in the group know about resources and can support each other.

10- Ask the group: does anyone need support this week or have anything they want the group to check in with them about next week?

11- Ending the group at the time announced at the beginning of the meeting is a way to respect the participants and to build trust. Thank people for attending and let them know you hope they will come back again next week. Let people know if you have time to continue talking later or what is expected of them at the end of the group.

12- Encourage individuals who attend often or who have skills to lead or co-lead the skill shares. Leadership encourages people to take ownership of the group and helps people come back each week.

Monday at the Garden

Our peas had a major growth spurt this past few weeks. We're excited to have our fences covered with produce again. Creative vertical gardening like this is not only a great way to beautify the garden, but it also enables passerbyers to enjoy the fruits (or more literally veggies) of our labor.

There are lots of other beautiful coming to bloom during this rainy time. Check out our fruit trees. On Friday, if the rain is light enough we'll be starting some new planting projects around the space.

Check out our two green houses above, where we've begun growing some of our own seedlings.

Here is a group of happy seedlings that were planted by one of our volunteers who works in the garden during the day, and stays in the shelter each night.

I even noticed that some of our berries are about ready for eating!

A group of 6th graders from the SF Friends School that helps with garden tasks each Tuesday, helped to create these butterfly boxes to attract some diversity for the garden space.

Yesterday at the Garden

At our garden skill share, we looked at the drainage problem that we have had in the garden that has been causing some of our plants to get over watered. The hole on the left was dug last week below the rocks on the bottom of the beds that were used to create a french drainage system. Then we poured water in the hole onf Friday. On Monday, the water was still there. This means that we'll need to create better drainage for each of our beds. In some beds we have used mounds to give the plants more space for plants that need less water.

Since we don't have lots of construction equipment to dig out all the beds and arrigate the soil under the beds that have been compacted heavily from years of use as a freeway, we will instead be working over the next couple of months to use compost and straw to create better drainage at the bottom of the beds. Now all we need is lots of compost and straw! Stay tuned for photos and updates about how we work on solving the drainage problem.

We've also been doing a lot of harvesting at the garden. We picked lots of kale and celery and mustard and have lots to spare, so stop by the garden during one of our work days if you're interested in some. Christopher cook some of the kale, pictured below and we enjoyed it at our Monday 1pm garden meeting.