Social Capital & Community-Based Education & Learning: From Agency to Relationship-based Services

Over the past two years the City of Mount Gambier have been privileged to partner with Flinders University, bringing education professionals Dr George Otero (Director of the Centre for Relational Learning in Sante Fe, New Mexico) and Professor John Halsey (the Sidney Myer Chair of Rural Education and Communities in the School of Education at Flinders University) to Mount Gambier; developing a commitment to the relational learning process in partnership with our community. 

Dr Otero's fundamental philosophy is simple: 

"We believe that our relationships hold the keys to educational success"

2012 saw a Sidney Myer Rural Lecture Series 'Rural Communities...Education for the 21st Century' hosted in Mount Gambier (watch it here). This lecture was an incredible success and received an overwhelming response from participants wanting to be involved in further workshops to challenge the traditional education paradigm and develop a local whole of community, relationship based approach to educationand learning; raising the question where to from here?

A two-day workshop with Dr Otero and Professor Halsey titled 'Social Capital and Community-based Education & Learning: From Agency to Relationship-based Services' was held in Mount Gambier in 2013. 

The aim of the workshop was to reconnect with the content and input from the Sidney Myer Rural Lecture Series 'Rural Communities...Education for the 21st Century' lecture; engaging participants in the process of moving toward relational, whole of community based ways of providing education, human services and support.

Topics covered included:

• Social capital and community-based education and learning: Rural contextual factors specific to Mount Gambier,
• Exploring partnerships: Identifying opportunities to make them work and how,
• From agency to relationship-based services: Exploring being and working in a relationship-based way, and
• Progressing being and working in a relationship-based way: Identifying areas of change and what needs to be done.

The strong attendance at these sessions emphasised that relational, whole of community based ways of providing education, human and support services will form the pillars of our approach to developing a sustainable community learning model, specifically designed to meet the ongoing needs of our community - with our community.

Please visit the 'Library' for further information and extensive documentation relating to Dr Otero's philosophy.