Understanding and Working with Patrons from Poverty

The "Framework for Understanding and Working with Patrons from Poverty" class on 3/16/15 was a huge success. If you did not attend the class, you missed a great workshop on understanding class differences and discussions about how to provide better services and relationships with our communities.  Bethanie Tucker led the class through the hidden rules and language that separates economic classes and helped the attendees to recognize their own biases.

Reactions from the attendees were overwhelmingly positive, and many were interested in immediately trying some of the strategies that were discussed in class.  One attendee left "tired but saturated" with helpful information and another was disappointed that there wasn't time to cover all the materials in the handout.  There was a request for the followup program and a suggestion that all supervisors should attend this training.  Most attendees learned to be wary of assumptions and expectations and saw this as the start of an ongoing project to connect customers with resources.

The book that was mentioned in class is owned by the library and is "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby K. Payne (SSH Department  HV4045 .P39 1998Q).