March 3, 2022 – For the past five years, WPDI’s Domestic Harmonizer Program (DHP) has focused on providing conflict resolution education (CRE) training to students and teachers at our partner middle schools. Now, as we enter a new chapter in the program’s evolution, the DHP is also offering parenting workshops to parents at our partner schools. This additional component to the DHP is important because parents are clearly the most influential figures in their childrens’ lives. Empowering parents will only empower students too, and by providing training in CRE to parents, WPDI impacts the whole school community. Over the past few months, WPDI delivered four different workshops, covering topics such as trauma-informed care, family healing, conflict resolution, and communication. The sessions were delivered to parents at Ball Jr. High School and Walker Jr. High School, both of which are within the Anaheim Unified High School District (AUHSD).
Most recently, WPDI delivered a two-part parenting series to parents at Walker. The first session focused on our work at WPDI – specifically the work of the DHP – as well as basic conflict resolution tips geared towards parents. The exchange was quite interactive and the workshop was more of a conversation than a strict course, which was beneficial to the group dynamic. The second session focused more on family healing and looking at ways we can help kids in middle schools navigate conflict and how parents can help students as well. The conversations with parents took the sessions to discussions about the challenges of parenting, especially for working parents, during the pandemic, the importance of understanding changes happening in the brain during those critical years, and ways we can all approach conflict depending on the situation.
“Our school’s partnership with The Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative has been genuinely exhilarating,” said Silvia Vasquez, the Van Wye Family and Community Engagement Specialist at AUHSD. She added, “It has given parents hope in managing conflicts with their teens, showing them a path of empathy and care for their relationships. Understanding how emotions play into conflict along with addressing the underlying needs of each person has allowed our community to view conflicts without shame and build stronger relationships at home and at school.”
One of the aims of the DHP team this year is to continue to develop the parenting component of the program and to ensure that it is a robust aspect of the DHP, just like the teacher and student portions of the program are already. In this way, we can positively impact the whole school culture and help parents, students, and teachers navigate conflict better – especially during the challenges imposed by the pandemic. As we continue to build out this critical component, we aim to reach more and more parents at our partner schools and beyond.
